Drunken Goat Cheese

We had some people over to celebrate the ending of one year and the beginning of another. In addition to the robust meal she prepared, my wife also served a platter of assorted cheeses and crackers. As I picked through the sampler, I noticed the name on one of the cheeses said “Murcia Drunken Goat Cheese.” Of course I was instantly intrigued and filled with questions. The main one being, “Do they get the goat drunk before milking her, or does she do that on her own?”

I mean is the Murcia region of Spain filled with a whole population of alcoholic goats and the cheese companies decided to capitalize on their inebriated state to take the goats’ milk? I think maybe the goats are enjoying life a bit too much, and by extension now we can too! The cheese was actually very tasty.

Suitcase Full of Gifts

My mother-in-law came to town from Greece tonight. After she’d showered and eaten, it was after nine o’clock. Even though she was exhausted, and my son needed to go to bed, she insisted on unpacking her suitcase to give him all his gifts.

All of my in-laws do the exact same thing. It’s not the fact that they bring gifts, or that they want to give them to us. It’s the fact that they persist in doing that before doing anything else. Sometimes it’s done before we can even properly welcome them into our home. They are so excited to give the gifts and see the reaction, that they can’t contain themselves.

Most of the gifts were my son’s Christmas gifts, but she couldn’t even wait a few days to give them to him. My in-laws are generous to a fault, showering us with blessings, but I still find it funny that you can always count on the gift bazaar happening within minutes of arrival.

The funniest part is that my spousal unit will do the same thing when she goes to Greece. It’s like the “sickness” takes hold of her, and she turns into a different person. I’m usually tired and hungry after our 16-hour flight, but none of that matters until we deliver the gifts!

Conviction Versus Blood

There comes a point when conviction and beliefs supersede blood. It’s like the battle lines drawn in the Civil War. Brother fought brother because their views on slavery and the inequality of men didn’t align.

I’m scared that soon I will have to make a hard choice never to see my family again. Some of them continue to be steadfast in their belief not to be vaccinated. Whether that be from some political standpoint or from the belief that things aren’t really that bad, it still doesn’t align with my beliefs or what I want to protect my immediate family. And if the risk gets too great in my opinion, and they become a danger, I will decide to never see them again in person. I wish it didn’t have to come to that, but I will do it. I won’t hesitate.

It’s their choice to believe what they want, as it is mine. It’s sad that the world had to even be put into this predicament. But the truth is that it’s reality, and I will choose my beliefs over blood. I will miss them. I will pray for them and their health and safety. I will love them. But not to their face.

It’s their choice. Choices come with consequences. At some point, everyone has to choose how tightly they will hold onto their beliefs over family and friends. My hard choice is to give them up. Their hard choice is to not be in our lives anymore. We can’t both have what we want, unless we both lose. The only way we both win is for one of us to give in on our convictions. But it can’t be me. The risk is too great.

Army of One

I decided to enter a walking challenge at work. Essentially, people team up and compete against each other to accumulate the greatest number of steps throughout the month. I had participated in a similar event back in September with members of my integration team. We won the event by a comfortable margin, but the experience irritated me. Partly because half our team barely contributed to the total. And partly because I realized that the tracking program doesn’t just add up the total steps for the team. It takes the total and divides it by the total number of people on the team. In this way, each team gets a daily average. I get that this is supposed to level-set teams so that teams with fewer members can still be competitive. But the downside is that the more “dead weight” you have on the team, the more watered down the steps of a single motivated person will be. This is what happened to the few people on our team that took the challenge seriously.

So, this time around, I decided to branch out on my own and do the challenge solo. Now, I get credit for every step I do, instead of having to divide it across other people. After just three days in, I was dominating the challenge. I was already 65,000 steps ahead of second place. After one week, I had already surpassed the total challenge goal steps of 154,000 steps.

It’s gotten so bad that one of the guys on my team told me that his wife was mad at me because I was so far ahead. She’s determined to catch and pass me. Unfortunately, she made the classic mistake of believing that more people on her team would give her an advantage. So, she recruited her husband to walk too. Now, he’s also mad at me because she’s making him exercise. If you think about it, I’m actually increasing the activity level of the entire organization. Everyone is walking more and trying harder to catch me. I may be the villain, but people should be thanking me for exploiting the loopholes and taking a very calculated approach to this challenge. So, you’re all welcome in advance.

UPDATE: Apparently, my legendary status as the villain has gained wider appeal. Several of the teams that were desperately trying to catch me have added additional people to their ranks in an attempt to increase their step count. I couldn’t help but laugh. While this logically makes sense, the formula the program uses to average steps across the team actually means that these teams are hurting themselves and will ultimately only fall further behind. But on the flip side, even more people are now getting exercise in an attempt to dethrone me!

The DJ

We used to have a guy on our team that would always introduce himself on customer calls by using his first, middle, and last names. This was especially odd because he actually went by his middle name. But what was even odder was that he also switched to his “radio voice” when he’d get on the calls. It was a very dramatic, very exaggerated enunciation of every word with dramatic pauses thrown in for extra effect.

“Hello! This is Samuel…James…Henderson, and I’ll be your ITL…on this project.”

And he did it the exact same way on every…single…call (see what I did there).

“Hello! This is Samuel…James…Henderson, and I’ll be your ITL…on this project. If you have any issues…any issues at all…I’ll be the person…that will assist you.”

I always imagined that what would follow next after this introduction would be something like this.

“If you’re caller…number four, you’ll have the privilege of being the first on your team to complete…end-to-end testing. Simply wait until you hear ‘Believer’…by Imagine Dragons…and then call into our studios. Make sure you say the phrase…that pays…‘I work with Samuel…James…Henderson!’ And now a word…from our sponsors. The sales team will now come on…and promise a bunch of things…that we won’t be able…to deliver.”

Pursued

I was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory today, and in it, Leonard is pursued my Sheldon’s new assistant, Alex. At first, Leonard doesn’t realize that Alex is after him, but once he does, he relishes the attention. Not because he’s actually considering leaving his girlfriend, Penny, to pursue Alex, but because he enjoys being wanted. After being rejected by women for so long, he’s finally able to enjoy being wanted by two women at the same time.

I had a similar thing happen to me in college. I had a long-term girlfriend when suddenly I made a new girl friend. At first, it was just nice to get to know someone new, but then she developed feelings for me. And those feelings drove her to pursue me romantically. I was flattered by the attention. It was nice to be wanted by two women at the same time. I had spent so much of my life being ignored or glanced over by women that it was a refreshing change to have them want me instead. It boosted my ego and self-confidence.

Everyone likes to be pursued. It makes us feel alive and wanted. Many of us considered unpopular by the “in crowd” develop insecurities of not being enough or being ostracized by a world that didn’t take the time to get to know us, because we didn’t fit into their little mold of perfection. We desperately crave the attention that never comes. We look at people passing on the street, hoping that they’ll make eye contact and acknowledge us. We want beautiful women to do a double take and consider us a viable partner. But we’re lucky to get one glance much less two (it’s still never happened to me to this day). So, it’s nice when someone likes you for who you really are. But even more than that, it’s nice when they value you more than other choices they have.

So, I strongly related to Leonard walking around with his chest puffed out, relishing the attention from beautiful woman and relishing the jealousy it created in the other. It’s every nerd’s fantasy. I’ve often wondered how I’d do on the open market now. Would my maturity, security, and proven track record make me sexy to the right woman? Would the time and effort I’ve made to keep myself in shape put me ahead in the game for a man my age? Or would I always be the nerd, not quite handsome enough to make a woman look twice?

Luckily, I don’t need to worry about such things. And hopefully I never do. It was hard enough to get one beautiful woman to love me. I’d rather not have to start all over.

Good Friday

I had coffee with my sister and her father this afternoon. During the conversation, we got on the topic of religion. It should be noted that I’m a Christian, my sister’s father is for the purpose of this post a Hindu, and my sister is somewhere in between both of those.

My sister was relating a story about her work, where someone came on a conference call and wished everyone a Happy Good Friday. She was disturbed by the use of “Happy” when acknowledging the day, because the day itself marks the anniversary of Jesus’ death. “How can it be happy if you’re remembering someone’s death? It’s sad, no?” she asked.

While I see her point, I don’t agree with it. Christians don’t view Jesus’ death as a sad event, which is even why we call the day Good Friday. It is a day of redemption. A day of forgiveness that cleans the slate and allows us access to eternity with God. We are thankful of the willing sacrifice of Jesus, but more importantly, we are aware that the story didn’t end there. If you take that one day out of context and you don’t combine it with the Resurrection three days later, then I can see how you’d view it as sad. Most deaths are permanent, so they represent a finality that hints at never seeing that person again. It is sad to think of not having more conversations, spending more time, or making more memories with that person. But you can’t stop at Friday in the story of Easter, so there is no reason to be sad.

My sister clarified that the sad part wasn’t just that Jesus died, but that it was our sins that put Him there. That’s true, and it’s a whole other point. We did put Jesus on that cross, and we have to own up to that. But to focus on that over the larger sacrifice and what it represented is self-centered, instead of Jesus-centered. The story is not about what we did, but about what Jesus did…for us. And if we focus on Jesus, then it’s a day of celebration, not of sadness.

My sister’s father pointed out that the sadness has more of a historical context than a Biblical or religious context. He said that since the death of Jesus occurred on a Friday the 13th that it’s generally accepted to be a bad thing. Intrigued by this statement, I decided to do some research on this.

According to the book The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived, Jesus’ death most likely occurred in AD 33. While many scholars have tried to argue that it actually occurred in AD 30 instead, the historical evidence doesn’t support that.

In the Bible, we know that John the Baptist’s ministry began before Jesus’ and that it occurred “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar . . .” (Luke 3:1). We know from Roman historians that Tiberius was confirmed as Caesar by the Roman Senate on August 19, AD 14. So, if we extrapolate that his fifteenth year of reign started in late AD 28, then we can assume that John’s ministry most likely started in early AD 29, and we have a starting point for our timeline.

Since Jesus’ ministry began shortly after John’s, we can surmise that it began in late AD 29. In the gospel of Luke, he mentions that “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23). If we follow the commonly-held belief that Jesus was born in 6 or 5 BC, then He would have been around 32 years old, which would easily place Him at “about thirty years of age.”

The gospel of John mentions that Jesus attended three Passover meals, with the last being shortly before His death. The other gospels also mention a possible fourth that is not recorded in John. So, we can assume from this that His ministry lasted about four years. Since Passover falls in March or April, the first would have been in AD 30 with the last occurring in AD 33.

Since Jesus’ death occurred on “the day of Preparation” (John 19:31), or Friday, we know that it coincided with Passover. The most common calendar used in Jesus’ day was the Pharisaic-rabbinic calendar, and we know from Exodus that Passover always occurred on the fifteenth day of Nisan. In AD 33, Nisan 15 was April 3.

Why did you just slog through that long history lesson to reconstruct the timeline of Jesus’ death? Great question! AD 33 was a common year starting on a Thursday. This means that it had three occurrences of Friday the 13th during the year…February, March, and November. Based on the timeline we constructed, Jesus’ death most likely occurred on April 3, which means that it could not have occurred on a Friday the 13th. Which makes total sense, since the myth of Friday the 13th is most commonly associated to King Philip attempting to arrest or kill all of the Knights Templar on October 13, 1307 in order to seize their reputed wealth. But that’s another story.

Date Night...er...Morning

Yesterday evening, my spousal unit sent me a random article about a partial lunar eclipse that was happening that night…or actually early this morning. Her only comment was, “Are you game for this?!” Of course I was, as I always am. We love astronomical events like this.

What I didn’t realize was that it started at midnight and went for six hours with the peak hitting at around three a.m. When she told me that later on, my reply was, “I’m not staying up until three in the morning.” She agreed. So, we made a pact. If one of us got up around that time to use the bathroom (as inevitably happens almost every night), then that person would wake the other person up. If neither of us woke up, then it wasn’t meant to be.

At 2:35 a.m. exactly, my mind switched on. It wasn’t so much that I had to use the bathroom (although I definitely did the more I tried not to think about having to use the bathroom), but more just a sudden awareness of space and time around me. So, I pulled some warm clothes on and trudged outside to assess the eclipse situation. After all, there was no reason to wake up my spousal unit if we couldn’t see anything. It was a gorgeous night…er…morning; cool, crisp, and not a cloud in the sky. The eclipse was on full display, having turned 90% of the moon a rusty, red color. So, I trudged back inside to get backup.

It was awesome to sit in the driveway, freezing our backsides off, wrapped in multiple blankets, munching on mini cinnamon pinwheels…and just talk. We rarely get to do this because our son always interrupts us. It was like a date night. We laughed, we complained about our neighbor’s dog barking at the moon, and we watched the white part of the moon get smaller and smaller.

I don’t know too many people that would enjoy that or be willing to get up at three in the morning to watch an eclipse. It made me realize how special my spousal unit is and how lucky I am to be married to her. How many people can say they’ve had a date under the stars at three in the morning in the light of a rust-red moon?

Like a Rock

I have a running joke with my wife about the fact that I can't float on my back in the pool. Well, she thinks I'm joking when in fact I'm completely serious. She doesn't believe that a person is incapable of floating in water, even though I've repeatedly assured her that I sink like a stone. I've even demonstrated the phenomenon for her, but she told me that I was doing it wrong. I didn't realize there was a right and wrong way to sink to the bottom of the pool, but I guess I've mastered it.

Well today, I was watching The Big Bang Theory, and lo and behold, Sheldon admitted to have the exact same problem! He said the issue was that he had a higher than normal body density, which sounds completely reasonable and plausible. So now, I finally have a reason for my inability to float in the pool that my wife can't refute. It must be true, because not only did I see it on TV, but Dr. Sheldon Cooper is generally accepted as a genius, so he must know more than us.

West Target Story

Something was going down in the Target today.  I walked right into the middle of a stand-off between the plus-sized mannequins and the stick-thing mannequins.  Nobody was moving, but you could feel the tension all over the entire store.  I was waiting for the two sides to start snapping their fingers as they did a choreographed dance around each other.  My money was on the plus-sized mannequins.  They looked more than capable of holding their own against the undersized and overmatched skinnier mannequins across the aisle.

Trash Days

It’s sad when you start to define your days by which waste bin goes out by the street. On Tuesdays and Fridays, it’s the trash bin. On Thursdays, it’s the recycling bin. On Mondays and Wednesdays, it’s neither; but Monday follows Sunday, and usually all of Sunday, I’m thinking about and dreading having to work the next day. So, I always know when it’s Monday! I wonder if I’d actually have any cognizant awareness of the day without the waste bin. It’s so sad.

Crucial and Perfect Point in History

Why do you think Jesus came at the exact point in time when He did? Why not thousands of years before, like directly after the fall of man? Why wait so long to finally send a Savior? Why set up a system, requiring millions of believers to perform rituals to absolve them of their sins? Why make the world wait in anticipation of His coming, instead of giving everyone the joy of it already having happened, like we have now?

Or why not thousands of years after He came, like during an era when we had cameras or cell phones to document His miracles and prove to millions that He was who He said He was? Was it because He wants people to believe by faith and not by "proof"? Or maybe because it really wouldn't matter. Even with photo or video evidence, people still wouldn't believe it. They'd say it was edited or a hoax.

What was so crucial and so perfect about that exact point in history? Was it the mid-point of life? Could we extrapolate the end of the world by calculating the time before His birth and after it? I know we'll never know the answer, but the question is still interesting to ponder.

The Turning Point

I was reminiscing this morning about my job. After a series of disappointing stops along the way, I remember how much I loved my job when I first started. I was excited to find a place to use my various skills and talents and a place that valued my ideas and innovative thinking.

But I also remember the turning point, the exact moment when it changed to an unpleasant working experience. My boss, KE, was a great boss. He encouraged me, entertained my suggestions, and rewarded my successes. With him, I felt like I finally had found fertile ground to put down roots. We quickly became very close, having like-minded ideas about the direction of the team, and I truly believe that he enjoyed having a confidant and buddy in the team. And when we unexpectedly found ourselves as a single-car family, he graciously volunteered to pick me up for a carpool.

It was on one of those car rides home that KE mentioned that he was bouncing around the idea of having a co-manager to help him with the ever-growing demands of the team. We threw around some high-level ideas on the responsibilities of the role, something we often did during our rides. And then he surprised me by telling me that he was considering me for the position.

I was ecstatic and speechless. It was the culmination of all that I had desired and been working toward for years. My dream was to manage, to find a way to give back to the team and give people a better manager experience than I had had throughout my career. But I also realized that it wasn’t a done deal yet, so I tried to keep my hopes under wrap until I knew for sure. Later that night, I texted KE with some additional questions and ideas about the role, trying to imagine how I could fit into it. His response was, “I don’t think we should talk about it anymore. I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you. That was my mistake.”

In the end, the role never came to be, and I was not to live my dream of being a manager. Actually shortly after, a new person was brought on to manage the team, and KE was demoted. But it wasn’t the loss of the opportunity that stung, I’m mature enough to understand corporate politics and how fickle this world is. It was the wall that KE built between us. After that car ride, he went out of his way to separate the business from the personal. I was cut off from his inner thoughts and from the privilege of what happened behind the scenes. Without warning, I became just another contributor on the team.

We stopped carpooling, as the awkward tension grew between us. We stopped eating lunch together. We pretty much stopped talking, unless it had to do with a normal boss-peon interaction. And as the wall between us grew, I found that I had lost the one person that had believed in me, in my potential, in my ideas. I no longer had his favor or encouragement. And without that, this became just another job like any other that I had worked. A job filled with disappointment and politics. I watched undeserving person after person get promoted to leadership, while I languished underutilized and unsatisfied on the sidelines.

I sat like this, becoming more and more bitter, for three years until another chance finally presented itself. But by then, it was too late. The damage was done. I was no longer the hopeful enthusiastic person that I had been. Everything was now jaded by that one moment, that one ill-conceived response from the man that I had looked up to and respected.

I ultimately took the job of manager, because I didn’t feel there was a better option for the team. I felt like they deserved better than what they’d been experiencing for the last six months. I didn’t take it because I wanted to lead; that part was gone, broken by the machine that had once held such promise. But some small part of me still felt like I could use the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. And then another turning point happened at the hands of the same man.

I was struggling with a situation with a couple of my team members, and I reached out to KE for advice. He had moved on to another company months before, but we had kept in touch after he’d left. His response to my text was, “Well, you’re the one that wanted to be a manager. Welcome to leadership.” Instead of taking the opportunity to mentor and guide me, instead of making amends for the hurtful way he’d handled that moment so many years ago, he took one more opportunity to jam the knife through my barely-beating heart. And with that stroke, he severed the last cord that bound us. I haven’t really talked to him since.

And my tenure as the manager of this team has been bad ever since. I regret the decision to take the job. I loathe going to work every day. I don’t feel respected by the team or the organization. And in three years, I haven’t been able to accomplish a single idea or goal. My time as the leader has been unremarkable and forgettable.

This is not what I imagined it would be like so many years ago, when I was a bright-eyed and naive consultant, yearning for a chance to make a mark on this world. It has been eight and a half years of walking down a gravel road barefoot, while a crowd of people, lining both sides of the road, have pelted me with rocks and garbage. And I can’t help but wonder if all of it might have turned out differently if one man had chosen a different response to my text.

Practicing Being a Goose

The weather this week has been a little cooler, dropping down to the 50s at night and only creeping up into the high 70s during the day. As the world prepares for approaching winter, I have noticed that the large population of Canadian geese that make their home here in Dallas have started to form up into flocks. Every afternoon, you can see them practicing their v-formations in preparation for flying south. Their distinctive honks ring out above the din of city life, calling out adjustments and instructions. It truly gives a sense of transitioning into the Fall.

High-End Citizens

The area that we live in contains a lot of high-end cars; like Maserati, Audi, Lexus, Lamborghini, Ferrari. Even teenagers that look like they’ve had a license for all of ten minutes are driving around in Mercedes and BMWs. And the weird part is that not only do you see the sports version of these, driven by men going through a mid-life crisis I assume, but you see a lot of SUV versions. Families going to dance class or soccer practice in an Audi SUV. We’re talking about a $70,000 car for every-day use.

After observing a large subset of the people driving these expensive cars around, I have come to one very factual conclusion. There are two kinds of people that drive Audi SUVs…successful single people and successful married people.

I guess they don’t necessarily have to be successful. They could have spent every dime they’ve ever made on that car in order to appear successful. Okay, so there’s two kinds of people that drive Audi SUVs…single people and married people. That comes from weeks of meticulous observation and study, so you can take that statement on face value. It’s true, trust me.

Just Sing

I remember the first time I sang in front of another human being. I was riding in the car with CW, and a good song had come on the radio. I was scared and hesitant, because I wasn’t sure if she’d think I sang well. But she was my best friend, and she’d never judged me before. If I was ever going to take the risk, this was the time and place to do it.

So, I went for it. CW started singing with me, and she had a beautiful voice. When the song ended, she said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you sing. You have a nice voice. You should try out for the choir.” I was caught completely off guard. Not only didn’t she make fun of me, but she actually encouraged me to share my voice with the world. Now, she could have just been polite, but it was the response I needed.

After that, I started being more bold, singing in front of other friends. And every one of them took the opportunity to sing along with me. It’s like they were waiting for me to go first. Like my vulnerability gave them courage. I know I’m not a superstar, but I also know I’m not the worst singer on the planet. And my courage has grown and grown.

I sang in front of an audience a few years ago, which was my only “public” concert (one song at my father's church). But mostly I sing at the house for my son. Lucky for me, he loves to sing too, and I think my example gives him courage. My mom brags about my voice and tells me all the time that I sound good, although she might be a little bias. But it doesn’t really matter, because my experience has been one of love and encouragement. I didn’t need to be afraid to share my passion for singing. And now I share it with people whether they want to hear it or not!

Blood Brothers

When I was a senior in high school, I was in an art class. I had gotten into it to fulfill my humanities elective, but I truly loved the class. Even after I had fulfilled my elective, I continued to go because it was a great outlet for my artistic nature. And because I had met some amazing people that were fun to talk to.

My favorite medium was sketching with pencil. I loved the challenge of creating contour and texture with different pressure and darkness. I found myself sketching all the time at home too, and my girlfriend enjoyed creating art with me. So, when the school posted a contest to have your artwork entered into the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, we both submitted a piece.

The theme was supposed to have something to do with cowboys, ranching, the Old West, etc. Which made sense since it was going to be at the rodeo. My girlfriend’s sketch was of a wrinkled old cowboy, titled aptly “The Old Man.” Mine was a portrait of the faces of an American Indian and a cowboy both staring off into the distance in opposite directions…from different worlds yet connected. I called it “Blood Brothers.”

I was very nervous, because I’d never entered an art contest, nor had I ever displayed my work publicly before. It turns out that it was completely unwarranted. I was selected as one of three finalists whose work would be sent to the rodeo. Unfortunately, my girlfriend’s work did not make the cut, so it was a bittersweet victory. She was very supportive of me though.

I didn’t actually attend the rodeo, so I never got to see my work displayed. But I was notified a few weeks later that I had one First Prize, which was really second place. I think someone that had painted a realistic picture of a longhorn actually won Grand Prize, so it’s hard to be upset. Not bad for my first and only art contest.

Mega Roll

I was sent to the store today to buy toilet paper. I really don’t understand all of this mega roll crap. Every brand is touting that there rolls are bigger than their competitor’s, and that each roll is equal to four normal rolls. If every roll now is a mega roll, then isn’t that a normal roll? If you can’t find a “normal” roll, then why do they keep referring to it by comparison?! And what was the point of increasing the size of the roll of toilet paper to the point that it no longer fits on the dispenser? If it can’t turn because it’s mushed up against the wall, then it’s useless. This is especially perplexing when you have an emergency and desperately need a few sheets of paper only to have it rip off a single sheet at a time.

With Distinction

Anybody who knew me later in life might be surprised to find out that I wasn’t a very good student when I was younger. But I was a C student at best.

The problem wasn’t that I was stupid or anything. It was that I was unmotivated. There was no incentive for me to get good grades. My brother had the same issue, and my parents used to give him money, the amount varying based on the grade he got. But that didn’t work for me. I was never driven by money like my brother was. That’s not how I defined success. Nor was I driven by things either. No material thing that my parents dangled in front of me worked to get me to focus on my grades. My drive came from within, and until I had a cause worth trying for, I wasn’t going to try at all.

Fortunately, the school, and God working through them, came up with a new program when I was in the third grade…The Honor Roll. It had three levels, similar to the cum laude system in college. Level 1 was a blend of As and Bs. Level 2 was all As and no more than 2 Bs. And Level 3 was straight As. Not only would you be recognized in front of the whole school, but you’d also get a certificate with your name in calligraphic writing, forever immortalizing you on paper. The two higher levels came with other rewards as well, such as a free pass on one homework assignment and lunch with the principal, but I didn’t care about that. I wanted the recognition and affirmation. I wouldn’t realize it at the time, but that should have been an early indicator that one of my love languages was “Words of Affirmation.” But I digress.

That year I buckled down and finally focused on my school work. I wanted to be on the honor roll. I wanted to hear my name called out at assembly…to be one of the chosen few set apart as greater than the rest. Now that I read that out loud, I realize that I could have easily become a super villain. Fine line I guess.

When the first six weeks report came out, I had done it…all As and Bs…Level 1. I can’t recall now if my parents acknowledged the accomplishment or made a big deal about it. Frankly, I didn’t really care. As funny and duplicitous as it sounds, their praise didn’t do it for me. No cheering fans or roaring crowds would scream my name because of what they said. I needed the public to know. But praise dies down and fades into silence. I was a junky that needed more. I had to get back that feeling.

So, the next six weeks I did it again…and the next…and the next. By the end of the school year, I was up to Level 2. Better, but still not enough. The best words and loudest cheers still came for the top level. I wanted to be on the Principal’s Honor Roll. And when fourth grade rolled around that’s exactly what I set my sites on accomplishing.

And after the first six weeks, I had done it. I had reached the pinnacle of my small, unknown private school’s mountain. I was finally counted with the best of the best of the couple hundred people that attended that school. In my small corner of the world, I was elite. I doubt now that the cheering and applause was as glorious and raucous as I heard it in my mind, but I didn’t care. Those random strangers adored me!

But every Napoleon has his Waterloo, every William Wallace has his Falkirk. And the second six weeks, everything came crashing back to reality. I ended up with an 89.4 in reading. No amount of coaxing or begging would move my teacher to change it. I offered to do an extra assignment, retake a test, anything…to no avail. The hardest part to take was that I wasn’t an entire point away. I was but a mere tenth of a point away. I missed getting straight As by the smallest possible fraction.

As I reminisce about it now, I’m convinced that God sent that moment to humble me. I had grown too cocky and self-reliant, and I had missed out giving praise back to the One that made it all happen. But just like a blacksmith can make a sword stronger by first tearing it down and folding it on itself, God used that moment to make me better. I was no longer motivated by the recognition of others, but by an innate drive to be better. I no longer cared about the tangible rewards or being better than other people. My reward came from challenging myself to be better than myself.

I never got another B in elementary school or junior high. I graduated as the valedictorian of my eighth grade class. I’m sure there was applause and praise along the way, but I didn’t hear any of it. Nothing someone could say either good or bad could be more than I said to myself. My identity was no longer in man but in the One who made me.

I would go on to get all As and Bs in both high school and college. I graduated with honors from both. It’s amazing to think back at how much that honor roll changed the entire course of my life. In ways I could have foreseen, and in ways I couldn’t. It made me a better student, but God used it to make me a better person too.

NOTE: Did you know that “cum laude” is Latin for “with distinction”? It is the first level of graduating with honors. The second being magna cum laude (with great distinction) and third being sigma cum laude (with highest distinction).

Courage Over Regret

I have very few regrets in life, but one of them is how I went through high school. I never put myself out there and experienced things. I merely trudged the halls a quiet, reclusive, unknown person. People annoyed me, so I limited my contact with them. I was introverted and cynical. But that’s more a by-product than the cause. In truth, I was afraid.

In high school, I always wanted to sing and act. My best friend even tried to get me to join the choir with her, but I could never get up the courage to audition. What if they rejected me? What if I was the only one not to make it? What if I wasn’t good enough? I was afraid to fail. And if I couldn’t be guaranteed of success, then I wasn’t even going to try.

To this day, I still have no idea if I had what it takes to make it. I don’t know how singing and acting might have changed the entire course of my life. I don’t know because I never tried, and that’s one of my great regrets in life. I sat on the sidelines, or on the stoop behind the temporary buildings to be more precise, while everyone else put themselves out there.

I was on the soccer team, well I was the water boy for the team, but even that was more forced on me rather than a choice. When I was sitting with the guidance counselor signing up for classes, she asked me if I played any sports. I replied soccer and baseball. She told me to pick one, and I picked soccer. I had no idea that that meant I was agreeing to try out for the team. I thought she was just trying to get to know me better.

The only thing I really picked for myself was to join the Christian Student Union, and even that was terrifying. I loved it, but I was intimidated by all of these amazing people that sang better than me, knew the Bible better than me, and had a faith stronger than me.

There were just so many choices that I could have made, and I didn’t…choir, theater, cross-country running, the football team, yearbook committee, taking photographs. I didn’t care about drinking and partying like some people. That wasn’t my thing. But I wish I’d been more involved. I wish I’d had the courage to at least try.

Eye Five

Back in college, JT and I used to play a game called Torin’s Passage. It was a single-player game, so JT would control the character, and we’d work through the puzzles together. I don’t really remember much about the game other than the graphics were pretty cool for that time. But I do remember this one part where our character came across these two snails, Slim and Slime. They were giving us a hard time, insulting and making fun of us. Every time they’d throw out an insult, they’d say, “Eye Five!” and then they’d slap their eyeballs together. For some reason that had JT and I in stitches. To this day, neither of us can hear someone say, “Give me a high five,” without attempting to correct them that it is in fact an Eye Five.

Vertigo in a Bottle

I had vertigo today, and I was really dizzy. I had to sit down most of the day because every time I stood up, I felt like I was going to fall over. My head felt like it weighed twice as much as normal, and I was having a hard time keeping it “balanced” on my neck. The weirdest sensation was when I was walking and then I’d stop moving. My body would stop, but it felt like my head was still moving forward with inertia. I would have to “catch” it and try to balance it, moving back and forth as it wobbled from side to side. I imagined I looked like one of those performers balancing a plate on a stick that was balanced on their chin.

The worst part was that I had a lot of meetings today where I had to be on camera. A few of them were even interviews. The room was moving around me the entire time, so that I’m sure I looked like I was high on some psychedelic mushrooms. When I told CC about this, he suggested that some people might actually pay for that sensation. If I could bottle it, I might be able to make a fortune. We started laughing as we created an entire marketing campaign for our new product, “The Essence of Man.”

Feel like your life is boring, like you’re stuck in a rut? Liven it up a little with The Essence of Man.

Have meetings become like a monotonous chore? Try The Essence of Man, and you’ll never experience a meeting the same again.

Do women have you feeling like your life is spinning out of control? Take The Essence of Man, and it really will be.

I surmised that we wouldn’t even need a real product, just a placebo. We could bottle up sweet tea and sell it, using suggestive marketing. I’m sure people would feel the effects anyway, just because we told them that they would.

The One-Eyed Giant

When I was in elementary school, there was a stigma attached to wearing glasses. Kids made fun of those who had to wear them, calling them “four eyes,” or “nerd,” or some other equally stupid and hurtful name. Lacking the self-confidence that I have now, I desperately didn’t want to be in the line of fire. So each year when they’d bring an optometrist to our school to conduct an eye exam, I’d make sure to position myself toward the back of the line. Then, as the kids in front of me went through their tests, I’d memorize the eye chart. So that by the time it was my turn, I could recite it off without having to actually see it.

At the time, my adolescent brain told me that this was a good thing. But what I didn’t know was that my actions prevented the doctor was diagnosing the fact that I had an inherited astigmatism (my mom has the same issue). Essentially, I am blind in one eye. This affects my ability to reconcile objects at a distance. It wasn’t until I was in high school that it was identified, and I did get glasses at that time. But apparently had it been caught earlier, corrective lenses might have actually fixed or lessened the issue.

To add insult to injury, I inquired about LASIK surgery after I graduated from college. But apparently I wasn’t a viable candidate. One because my issue was only with one eye, and two because my eye had gotten so bad that they’d have to remove too much of the eye to correct the shape. Again, I might have been eligible had I been wearing glasses all along and kept the problem from getting out of hand.

The strange thing, and I actually had an optometrist tell me this, is that my depth perception issues should have prevented me from playing sports. Especially sports like baseball and basketball that require judging objects at a distance. But I played both sports and wasn’t bad at either one. I was even a center fielder on my baseball team, where I had to track and catch a lot of fly balls. Although, I wasn't the most consistent hitter, which makes sense now.

With basketball, I figured out that I had taught my brain how to judge distance by trial and error. I would take the same shot over and over until I made it. I would then file away a mental index of what the shot looked like and how much power I’d have to elicit to make it there. The rest was muscle memory.

I still play basketball occasionally, and it usually takes me a little time to get my shot going. I have to “map” out the court and the shots, so I can repeat them over and over again with success. But mostly I rely on layups and short jumpers.

It’s amazing how the brain will adapt to overcome a shortcoming. I do wear glasses now, but not all the time. Apparently, my brain now has two sets of visual patterns. It adjusts and adapts how it sees to whether I’m wearing my glasses or not, so that I can be successful either way. Personally, I think it’s a survival instinct. My brain is adapting to keep me alive. Well, it’s a theory anyway.

SIDE NOTE: Because of my condition, I would always choose the handle "Cyclops" whenever my stepfather and I would play computer games. I thought the one-eyed giant from Greek mythology seemed an apt choice.

This, of course, came from Polyphemus the Cyclops described in Homer's Odyessy, which I was reading in school at the time. Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon, who Odysseus and his crew encountered on their journey home from the Trojan War. The cyclops catches Odysseus and his crew trying to steal provisions from his cave and blocks them in with a huge stone. Foregoing hospitality, Polyphemus starts to eat the crew two men at a time. Odysseus gives him some strong wine that he acquired earlier on his journey, and when the giant asks his name, Odysseus tells him that it's "Nobody." 

When Polyphemus falls asleep that night, Odysseus and his remaining men stab him in the eye with a wooden stake. Polyphemus calls out to his brothers to assist him, saying that "Nobody has hurt me." Thinking that he's gone crazy, the other Cyclops refuse to come to his aid. The next morning when Polyphemus lets out his sheep to graze, he feels their backs to make sure that the men aren't trying to escape in the process. Odysseus and his men tie themselves to the underside of the sheep and thus escape to continue their journey.

Wednesday...Wednesday, What Went Wrong?

When I was in elementary school, my favorite day of the week was Wednesday. All of my friends liked Saturday, or Friday because it was like Saturday Eve. But not me. I liked Wednesday. This was because we had music class on Wednesdays, and that was my favorite class.

Long after I left elementary school, I still liked Wednesdays. I guess I hung on to the old memories and positive endorphins that Wednesdays always evoked. Now, I like Mondays and Fridays, mostly because those are the days of the week that I have the least meetings. It’s funny how something so trivial can drive such an important emotion.

The Same Again

A common ice breaker question that I’ve been asked quite a few times is, “If you had to eat the same meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?” The question in and of itself is ridiculous and unrealistic, because any meal, no matter how much you love it, would eventually get old. But what if we relegated the question to only a week? That’s a much more manageable timeframe. Most people would still get sick of the same thing every day for a week, but I think that we can all agree that we could endure it for that short amount of time.

Back in the summer of 1989, my family took a vacation to Washington DC. The trip was crammed full of historical landmarks and museums. The White House, the Smithsonian, Monticello, Martha’s Vineyard, Ford’s Theater, the Lincoln Memorial…all the usual suspects. But what I remember most about that vacation was the food court in the subway.

Every day we’d stop for lunch at the food court, and every day I’d ask for the same thing. No matter how hard my dad tried to convince me to explore something new, I only wanted a cheeseburger with mayonnaise. For ten straight days, that’s what I ate. And for ten straight days, I was in heaven. I didn’t tire of it. In fact, my yearning for it grew stronger every day. I started to look forward to it. It was the highlight of my day. Surrounded by all of this history, and the highlight was a mediocre cheeseburger on the subway.

So, I know the answer to the question of what I’d eat every day for a week. I lived it, and after all these years, my answer is still the same. Although, now I’ve also added pickles to give it some zing!

Break With Reality

There are times when I’m feeling very introspective and closed off. At those times, I don’t feel like talking or interacting with anyone. I just want to be. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be around people. I actually love going to stores, malls, parks…anywhere with people and just watch them. Observing their behaviors as they navigate their lives is calming. It’s like I can step outside whatever is going on in my own life and allow myself to be carried away in dozens of others, for just a moment. And sometimes I need those breaks with reality to help me face reality again.

Cereal Faux Pas

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those that open the cereal box flap toward them, and those that open the cereal box flap away from them. And apparently, I’m the only one that does it correctly.

This may not seem like a big deal, but it affects which end the bag is opened (unless you’re one of THOSE people that open the bag all the way across), which affects whether the box is poured from the left or the right.

I’m not trying to harp on this, but there’s just a way that this whole process feels more natural! And the way everyone else does it is not it! So get it together, people, especially if you’re going to open my cereal box. Because after you leave, I’m stuck with a backwards box of cereal. I mean sure I guess I could easily pull the bag out and turn it around, but it’s the principle of the thing!

UPDATE: Apparently, there’s actually three kinds of people. If you’re like my brother, then you open the box from the bottom, so you can get the prize before anyone else. That’s just wrong, but it also explains why none of my cereal boxes had prizes in them!

Reverend Moonshine

Apparently, my great grandfather, my grandmother’s father on my mother’s side, was a Methodist minister back in the 1920s and 1930s. I never knew him, as he died when my mother was still young. My grandmother never spoke about him to me, and now that she’s gone too, I can’t ask her about him.

I know that being a Methodist minister isn’t that unusual or newsworthy, but it’s the fact that he was also an illegal moonshiner that starts to spice up the story a little bit. Apparently, he would make the alcohol on his farm in East Texas and then distribute it to the surrounding area. These practices became even more widespread during Prohibition; when the possession, sale, and distribution of alcohol was prohibited in the United States. My grandmother, just a little girl at the time, and her siblings would ride along on the back of the truck, holding onto the moonshine kegs to make sure they didn’t fall off.

I really couldn’t believe that this kind of stuff happened in my family’s past; but I guess when you have 13 kids, you resort to any means to keep all of the mouths fed!

Patricia

Back in high school, I used to dream of finding a wife. I wanted that sappy, adoring kind of love, where you couldn’t get enough of each other. A love where you stole secret, or not so secret, kisses, held hands, cuddled, and took every opportunity to make “contact” when they walked by. A love where she lit up my life just by being in the room. Someone I wanted to be with, do things with, and couldn’t wait to see again. And every night I fell asleep wondering what it would be like to hold her in my arms. To feel her warm body pressed against mine, fitting perfectly with mine like a jigsaw puzzle.

So one day, I asked my stepmother to buy me a pillow that I could hold in my arms at night. I wanted to get used to sharing my space and cuddling with another “body,” so that when my wife came along, I’d be practiced. I didn’t want a standard sized pillow, because that wouldn’t give the feel of a human being, so I asked her for a bigger pillow.

In my mind, I imagined bigger meaning longer. But she interpreted that to mean literally bigger, and she brought home a square pillow that was two and a half feet by two and a half feet. It was black with red and pink tropical flowers on it, like it had a very Hawaiian shirt feel to it. The pillow, that I named Patricia for some reason, was massive. She took up most of my twin-sized bed, leaving very room for me in it. I guess it was a good thing that I was so skinny in high school, or I might have ended up on the floor while Patricia took the bed!

It took some getting used to, having Patricia in the bed with me. The first couple of nights, she actually ended up on the floor. I’d find her in the morning in a crumpled mess next to the bed. Then, it was hard because I had to sleep in the same position all night to hold onto her. After that, I started flipping from side to side and taking her with me, but I justified this by believing that in my future life, my wife wouldn’t ideally fall off the bed because I wasn’t holding her. And if I needed to roll over, then she could too, and we could switch roles.

So, I fell into a happy rhythm with my gigantic pillow. And when I went off to college, Patricia went with me. And when Patricia finally wore out, I got a new pillow, Patricia 2.0. She even became a running joke with my college roommates, but I didn’t care, because deep down I knew I was practicing for greater things.

I did eventually get married, but it didn’t quite turn out the way I imagined so long ago back in high school. I don’t snuggle up to my wife every night, and she doesn’t snuggle up to me. Mostly we keep to our own respective sides of the bed. I found that having someone’s head laying on your arm for extended periods of time will actually make it fall asleep. I didn’t have this issue with Patricia because she weighed virtually nothing. So, in the end it wasn’t practical.

I actually still sleep clutching a pillow, unable to stop after so many years of training. I do this even when I travel. My arms feel empty otherwise, and I can’t sleep. But due to the awkwardness of having to ask my wife to give my gigantic pillow some space, I have had to downgrade to a much smaller model. The current version has been with me for so long that she’s been molded into a more body-like shape. Patricia has become like Linus’ blanket for me, a source of comfort and peace so that I can relax. Not what I intended so many years ago, but life rarely goes as planned.

Alaskan T-Shirt

I used to work with a guy who would randomly wear an Alaskan t-shirt to work. It was just an ordinary blue t-shirt with a big picture of a mountain and the word “Alaska” on the front, but it was odd because he dressed so nicely ever other day. Thinking that he was just trying to loosen up a little, I made a comment one day that it was good to see him going more casual. To which he replied that it was laundry day and everything else he had was dirty. After that, I always laughed and teased him when I saw him wearing that t-shirt…must be laundry day.

The Alaskan t-shirt has now become my euphemism for laundry day. Whenever someone says they were doing laundry, I always ask if they were wearing their Alaskan t-shirt. It’s also my assumption when I see someone who normally dresses a certain way randomly wearing different clothes one day. So, I’ll ask them if it’s laundry day and they had nothing else to wear. Which is probably more relevant if someone randomly gets more casual in their dress, but I also do it if someone randomly gets dressier too!

The New Rug

I texted my spousal unit about a recent purchase I had made, and this is how the conversation went.

Me: I bought a new rug today.

Spousal Unit: Why would you buy a toupee, you’re not bald?

Me: No, it’s for upstairs.

Spousal Unit: That’s usually where you put a toupee, yes.

Me: Why are we talking about toupees?! You’re starting to make me feel self-conscious! I’m talking about a rug, as in a floor covering for my office upstairs.

Spousal Unit: Oh, well why didn’t you just say so.

Me: Sigh…

One-Armed Tan

It’s funny, but I remember back in the ‘80s and ‘90s that there was a phenomenon of the one-armed tan. It was always the left arm, because that’s the arm that the driver would hang out the open window. It was weird to see one arm darker than the other, but everyone accepted it too, probably because they had the same tan.

This phenomenon went away around the millennium when the self-tanning craze took hold. People became so obsessed with an “even” tan that no self-respecting person would be caught dead with a one-armed farmer. That and with global warming, people no longer drive around with their windows open. And even if they do, you rarely see an arm hanging out getting a little more sun than the other side.

My One Day as a Pirate

When I was in seventh grade, I was taking an elective art class. During one of the assignments, we were coloring with colored pencils. I guess I pressed too hard, and the tip of the pencil broke off…and flew right into my eye! The teacher tried to help me get it out by splashing water into my eye. She tried eye drops. She tried to see if she could get it with her finger. But nothing worked.

Finally, she called my mom to come get me, and I was rushed to the eye doctor. The optometrist used a giant cotton swab to gently fish this broken piece of leaf out of my eye. Unfortunately, because it had stayed in there so long and moved around a lot, I had severe scratches on my eyeball. So, he had to put some special drops in my eye to protect it and allow it to heal. The other unfortunate thing was that the drops wouldn’t stay in my eye on their own, so I had to wear an eye patch for the next 24 hours.

While it may sound cool at first, I mean who wouldn’t want to look like a pirate for a day, it was in fact the exact opposite of cool. This thing was white, not black, and didn’t come with a sweet skull and crossbones or even a giant ruby. And it was unceremoniously taped to my face instead of having a strap that went around my head. I looked stupid. And being that kids are cruel at any age, I talked my mom into letting me stay home until I could take it off.

So, my one day as a pirate was a disaster. Instead of riding free on the ocean waves, feeling a salty breeze against my face, and smelling the burnt odor of gunpowder as my ship took down a trading vessel…I spent it on land, cooped up at home, sleeping. Oh well, at least I still have use of my eye.