On a Year in the Blogosphere

In which we take a trip down memory lane.

I don’t know what is harder to believe, that it has already been a year since I began this blog, or that I was able to blog for the whole year.  Either way we made it to a year and that’s pretty exciting.  So to celebrate I thought that I would remove the veil and let you all take a look at the inner-workings of my slice of the blogosphere.

You have probably never wondered what exactly goes into the planning process for this blog¹.  But I am going to tell you about it anyway.  Normally while I am writing one week's blog I think of some idea that I want to write about the next week.  Throughout the week portions of the post will come to mind.  I never pre-write anything, which sucks when I sit down to type and get hit with writer's block.  I do, however, think about what visuals I want a head of time so I can do some google searches.  This is all completely accurate except for the times it’s not.  There have definitely been weeks where I have had an idea in mind and scrapped it at the last minute (see last week).

Once I write the post I’ll run it through a spell checker on Word to catch any spelling or grammar problems.  Then I will read through it and catch a few more.  After it has been posted online inevitably I will find new problems every time I read it².

Here are some interesting facts about the last year of blogging:

• This is my 45th blog post.
• March had the most posts with six³.
• September, August and May 2009 each had the least with one.
• Since June 20th 452 people have read my blog.
• They represent 21 countries.
• July 6th marked the apex of daily visitors, clocking in at 31 visitors, thanks to On My Jams.
• I have 7 blogspot followers and 16 Google Reader followers.
• 31 posts had comments; no post was commented on more than my first post.
• I have been asked to edit (and did edit) two of my posts after they were up.
• I have deleted one post all together.
• Including this post I have had 132 different tags.
• The footnotes made their début on Friday, October 16th.
• They became a permanent fixture on November 8th⁴.

As far as my highlights for the year I would say that I had the most fun with the two On Random Thoughts postings.  I felt that my most creative moments came from On Fulfilling a Birthday Wish…Kind Of and On Scramping.  My favorite post, though, was probably On War On Film.

I have greatly enjoyed the last 12 months of blogging.  Especially when I decided that I was going to make it a habit to write something once a week.  While it has been a challenge in come up with topics to write about it has really pushed me to be creative and also just to write more.  I don’t know if it has done anything to improve my skill as an author, it certainly hasn’t done much for my spelling or grammar.

So what am I looking forward to in the next year of blogging?  Here are some things I have been considering.  Interviews, more personal stuff, Capri Sun⁵, more pictures that I took, and maybe, maybe, contests.

One of my favorite parts about this blog is the comments that I get⁶.  Unfortunately Google Reader makes it easy to not comment.  But I’d love to hear your thoughts about my first year of blogging.  So escape the clutches of the reader, venture over to the blogspot and let me know what you think.

Thanks for sharing this last year with me.  And get excited for Bravo Deploy Satchmo Year 2.
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¹ Or maybe you have, what do I know I'm not a mind reader.
² I am a terrible speller, and have an uncanny knack at missing any and all grammar mistakes.
³ That has since been decreased to five (we'll cover why in a minute).
⁴ To date I have used 157 footnotes.
⁵ I'm just going to keep on teasing this until I write it.
⁶ Except the crazy Chinese posts that come with a ton of links, its such a hassle to go in and deleted them.

On Breaking a Promise For the Sake of Trivia

In which the hidden mysteries of a common expression are revealed, and minds may be blown.

So I know I promised to write about Capri Sun this week, unfortunately it is going to have to wait for a least another two weeks.  Sorry.

Yesterday, at work, I was out on the football field with one of the gym teachers.  We were watching our students run a half mile because they were being obnoxious.  During the course of our conversation he used a common idiom and we talked about where it found its origins.  I remember finding it a fascinating bit of history, however I can no longer remember what the phrase was, or what the history of said phrase was.  The experience was almost entirely stripped from my memory by the what followed.

The teacher asked me if I knew the meaning behind the saying, “Near but it ain’t aplomb¹.”

I told him that I could guess given that I knew what aplomb meant².

He asked me if I knew how you measured to see if something was aplomb.  I told him with a plomb-bob.  He then asked me if I knew why they were called plomb-bobs.  I told him I didn’t.

Traditionally, plomb-bobs were made by hanging pieces of lead from a string.  You let it hang straight down and you can tell if whatever you are making is straight up and down.  Now if you remember back to your last chemistry class the atomic symbol of lead is Pb.  The reason for this?  In Latin lead is called “plumbum.”  Thus the plumb-bob.  During the height of the Roman empire plumbum was all the rage.  It was very malleable, relatively easy to extract and refine from ore³, and most importantly it didn’t rust.  So when the Romans went about creating a system of pipes with which to deliver water to their cities lead was an obvious choice.

Unfortunately, for the Romans, they were unaware of a little thing called lead poisoning.  Some scholars theorize that the fall of the Roman Empire may have been hastened, if not caused, by lead poisoning.

But none of this was really all that mind blowing.  Here is what got me.  The original sewage pipes were created out of plumbum, and what do we call people who work on our pipes today? 

Plummers.  Ka-boom.
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¹ This isn’t the exact phrase he said, but I know I had never heard it before.
² It traditionally means that something is straight up and down.
³ Plus, add some sheep and wheat and you got your self a D-card.

On Discovering a Video That’s Been Discovered By Two Million People Already

In which well-trod ground is traveled and foreshadowing.

When I arrived home from work today I had received an email from a friend of mine¹.  The subject line read ‘Ahh Christian worship’ and contained only this link.  I watched it and found it to be pretty clever.  The music stuff was better than the speaking stuff.  In the comments someone mentioned something called “The Academy Award Winning Trailer.”  I had never heard of such a thing so a’googleing I went.  My search let me to this video.  Go ahead and check it would and we’ll talk about it when you are done.

This video absolutely made my day.  Most everything about it was so spot on.  For me the two highlights were the conversations with the concerned friend² and the music throughout the entirety of the trailer, but especially starting at 2:26.  It seemed like it was an actual movie that was coming out, which is kind of sad.

The weakest part?  The Avatar scene, it just didn’t jive with the rest of the trailer.  But I suppose you can’t win ‘em all.

Hope you enjoyed the brief post/video this week.  Come back next week for a discussion about Capri Sun.  No joke.

“LEAD FEMALE’S NAME!!!”
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¹ Who won’t be named so that he, or she, doesn’t get in trouble at work again and cause me a huge headache.
² “Friendly concern that a string of heightened and seemingly unrelated plots may now arise."

On the Lost Art of Knife Fighting

In which stories are told, scars revealed and no actual fighting takes place.

When people find out that I have worked, in a number of capacities, with middle school students¹ there are usually two responses.  Response #1: Wow, that’s amazing, I could never work with kids that age.  Response #2: I hated middle school.  Usually, response one is tied to response two.  But let’s focus on response one for today.

There are certainly times when working with middle school students is a huge headache.  But there are times when they do or say things that make it all worth it.  This week…worth it.
On Tuesday I had a mole removed from just under my right eye.  In order to keep me from, you know, bleeding to death some stitches were utilized to close up the wound.  The result was as follows. So now I’m walking through the hallways and lunchroom rocking this sweet stitched up gash.  I figured at some point one of the students would ask where the stitches came from, it finally happened during lunch.  When the first kid asked I told her that I was in a fist fight, she didn’t believe me.  Another table of guys asked me what happened and I told them that I had been in a knife fight.  Now I really didn’t think that they would believe me, it is pretty preposterous.  ‘Really?’ they asked me.  I stuck with my story and told them yes.

Other questions followed.  Did I win? Who was the guy?  Where did we fight?  Is he dead?  My answers: I won, some dude, over on the west side of town, and I wasn’t sure I didn’t stick around to check.  I didn’t really think anything would come of the conversation but later in the day I was helping out with a gym class and one of the kids asked me, “Did you really get those stitches in a knife fight?”  I told him absolutely I did, the kids turned and said to his friends, “Oh man, he said that he did.”  It was pretty great.

Jumping to today at lunch the same table of kids that I had the first knife fighting conversation with asked me if I was in a fight club.  I told them no, I wasn’t.  Later I was covering a science class and one of the kids was from that table and way jazzed that I was there.  When a different student asked what happened he, and some others students all announced, “knife fight.”  The class then spiraled into a conversation about my knife fight.  They wanted to know what type of knife I used?  A knife fighting knife.  Was it long or short?  Short, long knives are swords and it wasn’t a sword fight.  Who did I fight? François Le’Monjello.  If they google the name will it come up?  Well, now it might. They asked me again if the other guy was dead.  I stuck with I don’t know.

So now I am the knife fighting teacher. Which, in the realm of things to be known for by students I could do a lot worse than the teacher who knife fights.  I’ll be interested to see how long this lasts, and how long the story can keep going.  I’ve decided to come up with some pearls wisdom to pass along to anyone who asks².  Here is what I have come up with so far.

Lessons about knife fighting: 1) Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight³. 2) Don’t google image search “knife fight,” ever⁴. 3) The idea of a monkey-knife fight always makes me laugh.  That’s pretty much all I have right now, I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else.
I’m also considering spreading the rumor that I had to get stitched up because while I was juggling kittens one got away from me and caught me with a claw.
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¹ Or junior high students if you are one in the early 90s.
² I actually won't tell the kids any of these.
³ You're muck'in with a G here, pal!
⁴ You did it didn't you.

On Summer Time and the Living’s Easy

In which we fondly look back before excitedly looking forward.

Remember growing up how much you looked forward to summer break?  That agonizing wait for school to end and freedom to begin?  It was fantastic.  Some of favorite summer memories growing up include the following.  Sitting on the front porch of my house on Kent Avenue watching as patchy, windswept clouds blew past the sun.  I can distinctly remember looking down the street as shadows moved down the road like cars.  I’m not sure what about it was about that moment that made it lodge so deeply in my mind but it is there none the less.

I also remember skipping the last part of the last period of the last day of seventh grade.  All day my friends and I talked about cutting class and starting summer break early but we never had the stones to go through with it, until eighth hour rolled around.  We probably didn’t skip out much more than 30 minutes before the bell rang but man that extra half hour of summer was awesome.

One of my most pervasive memories of pre-college life was going to my friend Ryan’s house and playing laser tag.  At some point in the mid-90’s Ryan and his dad were at a store and saw a pile of laser tag guns on super clearance, specifically they saw these:
This is the Electronic Survivor Shot, the best home-based laser tag gun that you could buy.  What made it the best?  See that ugly thing at the top of the picture, that’s the sensor.  While most laser tag sensors were on the gun or on the player’s chest this was strapped to your head.  It has a 360^o receptor so you can get hit from any direction and when you get hit a motor rattled a button on your temple, which, when you are running around in the dark can freak the crap out of you.  What made this experience so amazing was the fact that Ryan lived on a hill overlooking an elementary school.  So we would play over a huge area that had lots of fencing, dark corners and narrow alleys.  I can still remember what it was like to walk along the tree line in the pitch black wondering if there was someone hiding just out of sight.  Or finding the perfect spot and being able to light someone up without them even knowing where you were¹.

Summer doesn’t really have the same feel that it used to.  There seems like there is always something that needs to be done, some project to work on, or money that needs to be earned².  But there are still things about the summer that I am very much looking forward to.  Now you may be asking your self, “Isn’t it still April? Didn’t spring start like, a month ago? Isn’t the summer solstice, the official start of summer, still held in late June?”

The answer to all of these questions is undoubtedly yes.

However, for two organizations summer starts in week.  What are these mystical events that have sped the seasonal calendar up by over a month?  College and Hollywood.  Next week is finals week here in Bloomington, Indiana, with the spring semester officially coming to an end the summer session will start on Tuesday morning.  Which brings me to the first thing that I am looking forward to this summer³. The summer exodus.

I love living in Bloomington, it’s why I came back to IU for grad school and it’s why I am hoping and praying for a counseling job in the area.  But as much as I enjoy living here during the year summers in Bloomington are simply the best.  It’s when we get to say goodbye dude bros, goodbye Ugg girls⁴, goodbye wide-eyed freshmen, goodbye jaywalkers, goodbye people stopping on third street to pick up friends, goodbye thirty minute trips across town.  We won’t miss you.

Hollywood is the other perpetrator of summer’s early arrival, because Hollywood loves money, and the summer is when they make it.  Next Friday Iron Man 2 opens up across the country officially kicking off the summer blockbuster season.  Every year Hollywood rolls out a swath of big-budget, big-effect movies one right after another in an attempt to separate you from your hard earned dollars.  Most of the movies will be mediocre, some will be terrible and some will be great.  A bold prediction on my part I know, but that’s how it goes.  With so many movies coming out it can be difficult to keep on top of them all.  But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.  Here is a super-trailer for you covering most of the big summer movies.

So what else am I looking forward to this summer?  A lot of things really.  I’m excited that I will get to hang out with my family a number of times throughout the summer.  I get to go to Young Life camp again, but this time as an adult guest which will be super rad.  I’m looking forward to playing disc golf⁵ and riding bikes around town.  I’m glad I get to be a part of the Rose’s garden from the ground up, literally.  I’ll be honest I’m kind of excited to hit the one year mark with this blog because I didn’t think it would last.  And I’m really excited to find out what’s next for me.  But really I’m just looking forward to spending some quality summer time here in Bloomington.

So let me be the first to welcome you to the summer, here’s hoping it’s an outrageously wondrous one.
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¹  My best spot was 30 feet up in a pine tree I sniped so many suckers.
²  Which is a part of why I am looking forward to working in a school full-time, summers off.
³  False alarm.  I made this footnote mark, but now I can’t remember why.  Apologies.
⁴  How is that look still in fashion, it boggles my mind.
⁵  Can’t wait to check out this homebrew course my friends came up with on campus. Check it out.

On What’s Been Cooking

In which cooking is discussed and recipes are given.

I enjoy cooking.  Whether I am grilling out, baking, chopping and seasoning, roasting or even throwing some stuff in a crock pot and walking away it is always an enjoyable experience.  My familiarity with a recipe doesn’t matter either, I’m just as happy stumbling through a new recipe as I am making something that I know so well that I can cook with my eyes closed¹.

There is something rewarding about the act of cooking.  It probably has to do with my limited proficiency when it comes to the arts.  I can’t draw or paint so when I want to create something is usually though cooking (or writing).   Here is the thing though, I’m not as good at is as I would like.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I can make some food that will rock your face off John Travolta and Nicolas Cage style².  But the fact remains when it comes to knowing what flavors will best compliment each other or cutting down the heat of a spicy dish I am a novice.  If you would like some proof just come watch me as I attempt to chop onions, always an embarrassing affair.  So certainly there is still a lot I have to learn, which is why when a recipe turns out it is pretty exciting and I look forward to making again to try and add my own spin, or to streamline the process, or even to devise a better “all around” meal.

Recently I had the opportunity to make a couple of things for the first time and I wanted to share them with you.  We’ll start with dessert³.

Last weekend my friend Mary Beth, and her friend Kate (I think), had a wine and dessert party.  I thought it would be fun to get a little creative with my dessert.  However, I was also craving cupcakes.  Cupcakes though are not normally creative, though they can be.  So I went in search of a new take on cupcakes that wouldn’t be too big of a headache.  That is when I discovered something mind blowing.  Chocolate-chip cookie-dough cupcakes.  What exactly is a CCCDC?  Exactly what it sounds like, a cupcake with cookie dough in the center.  It is gluttonous, and tasty.


Here’s how you make them.  First you need to whip up some cookie dough⁴.  Once that’s done form them into little tablespoon sized balls and freeze them for two hours.  Once your two hours are up grab a box of yellow cake mix (it’s okay this time) and follow the directions on the box.  Fill your cupcake tins 2/3’s of the way and place a doughball in each cup.  Throw them in the oven for 17-20 minutes, when they are done get your frost on⁵.  You can find the original recipe here.  Next time I make these I am going to try making everything from scratch (maybe not the frosting) and I’m going to go with chocolate cake with white icing to see if I can get my teeth to fall out of my head at the same time I slip into a diabetic coma.

So recipe part two starts with a completely different cooking experience.  A week or so ago Carrie and I made some spicy sweet-potato soup that called for pureed chipotles.  Unfortunately we only needed 2 tablespoons so we had a bunch left.  Jump to this week, Tim, Carrie and I had been talking about making pork chops for a while now and I decided enough is enough, Tuesday they were getting grilled no matter what.  I also knew we needed to use some of the chipotle puree, at first I thought a marinade would work the best but after a while I landed on a glaze.  A cranberry chipotle glaze to be exact.  Here is the recipe:


In a small sauce pan heat, over low stirring frequently:

• One cup cranberry sauce, from can
• 3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons pureed chipotles

Light grill, allow charcoal to heat until white.  Brush pork chops (x4) with olive oil and sprinkle with crushed black pepper patted on.  Grill on each side for three minutes.  Brush on glaze and grill for an additional three minutes on each side.  Remove from heat and let rest for 10 minutes⁶.

These were some of the best pork chops that I have ever had, there was a prefect balance of sweet and hot.  The only thing that didn’t turn out great was our side dish.  We made a quick stir-fry with some stuff we had around the house.  It was way too spicy and didn’t go well with the pork.  Next time I make this I will grill some asparagus and red potatoes along side the pork chops and have a little white rice on the side.  That would be outstanding.

So those are my recipes, I hope you enjoy them.  I guess the only thing to do now is to ask, what’s cooking with you?
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¹ Not that I would do that, it sounds dangerous.
² I want to take his face…off.
³ One of the joys of being an adult.
⁴ From scratch please, no tubes or break’n’bakes, those are for busters.
⁵ Let these dudes cool completely before you try and frost them, you will thank me later.
⁶ That tip comes to you courtesy of Alton Brown.

On Getting Out of a Hole

 In which an allegory is appropriated and applied to real life.

My friend Sparkles spoke truly when she said that Aaron Sorkin¹ knows what he is doing when it comes to making Christmas themed television episodes.  He just really knows how to bring it in a real way and evoke an emotional response.  In the second season of The West Wing the Christmas episode, titled Noël, has a scene that just grabbed a hold of me when I watched it a few weeks ago.

Without spoiling much, the episode revolves around the deputy chief of staff Josh who is dealing with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Throughout the episode there are times when he seems to lose his grip on the present, suffering from flashbacks and cold sweats.  He also becomes irrationally angry and at one point gets in a shouting match with the president.  None of these things are good things for anyone to be dealing with, but especially someone who is working so closely to the president.  Josh is obviously concerned that this issue may lead to him losing his job.  In fact he is required to meet with a psychologist for an evaluation to determine if he is still fit to be at work.

When he comes out of the meeting his boss Leo is waiting for him.  What follows is the scene that takes place between the two of them.  I’ll write out the dialogue in case the YouTube video is taken down, or if you can’t view it at work.  But you should really watch it instead of just reading it².

Leo McGarry: How'd it go?

Josh Lyman: Did you wait around for me?

Leo McGarry: How'd it go?

Josh Lyman: He thinks I may have an eating disorder...

Leo McGarry: Josh...

Josh Lyman: ...and a fear of rectangles. That's not weird, is it? [pause] I didn't cut my hand on a glass. I broke a window in my apartment.

Leo McGarry: This guy's walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can't get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, "Hey you, can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up "Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, it's me, can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out." [pause] Long as I got a job, you got a job, you understand?

I started to think about all of the people that I have met in my life.  Friends, family, students, co-workers, everyone.  I thought about times that they were in need and how I responded, or will respond in the future.  “I want to be like Joe,” I thought.  I don’t want to throw a prayer at someone.  I don’t want to throw a Band-Aid³ at someone.  I want to do something unexpected.  I want to get down in the hole with them and help them find the way out.

How great would it be if that is how I lived my life?  Jumping down into pits help people out when they are stuck.  It would be amazing.  But here is the deal.  The more that I thought about it the more I realized that’s not normally the situation that I find myself in.  And that is not the character that I find myself relating to.  More often than not I’m not Joe; I’m the dude in the hole.  I, all too often, find myself looking up at people as they pass by not knowing what to do next.  And that, I realized, is why this scene resonated with me so much; it contains an important bit of truth.

When you find yourself stuck down in some dark place there are people that want to get down there with you and show you the way out, because they have been there too.  The thing is, and I really think this is really important, the thing is, you have to let them know you are down there.  You have to be willing to say, “Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?”  And sure you might get some prescriptions or prayers tossed at you, but eventually a friend is going come down to where you are, and he or she is going to show you the way out.

But you need to ask first.
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¹ Of Sports Night, Studio 60, The West Wing, A Few Good Men, and Charlie Wilson’s War fame.
² You should really just watch the whole episode, it was stellar.
³ Or any generic self-adhesive strip.