my wedding

Tags

family, happiness, love, marriage, wedding

I became married on November 19th, and I wanted to provide the link to our wedding photos to those interested:  Thanks to Shino Omura for taking such wonderful photos.  And, of course, to the friends and family who were able to attend!

My Wedding

garbage and whimper (sopa and pipa)

Tags

Culture, Current Events, PIPA, SOPA, Technology

In case you’ve tried in the last few hours to check something out on Wikipedia, you’ll note that there’s a big, blacked out screen taking you to information regarding SOPA and PIPA.  In case you’ve not heard much about it, here’s a good article from Al-Jazeera in regards to the ban.

There are plenty of folks that are way wiser than me who are making thoughtful arguments about why SOPA and PIPA are bad, and I tend to agree.  If one is spending so much time being worried about whether something on their site is pirated, it will allocate precious energy away from creativity and innovation.  I’d rather not have Wikipedia wasting time on that – we see Jimmy Wales’ face more often than we’d like to now, imagine if he had to hire a bunch more staff just to check links?

I’m a person who came into his internet maturity just as Napster was in its heyday.  As such, my definitions of moral piracy are probably further down the continuum than a lot of folks, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see a value in correcting a distribution system that also stifles creativity – at least the way it’s done now.  Open sourcing, pay-what-you-want music distribution, and fee-based services like Netflix and Spotify have taken steps to move with culture and the shift in technology.  It is, in fact, possible to curtail piracy, but I think we need to recognize that it is as much a part of our lives as dubbing cassettes was 20 years ago.

As it’s been with the Occupy movement and other groans of “the-world-is-not-how-it-should-be” right now, I think that the business leaders who are trying to make decisions in the interest of their shareholders need to see what kind of economic value judgements have changed in the last generation.  If someone doesn’t want to wait the 56 days required for a new DVD, it’s easier to download it from elsewhere.  It’s too easy now.  The alternative for Warner Bros and other is either to bend to the will of the consumer, or lose money.  I believe that as time goes along, this will become a greater reality.

In the end, I think about my grandfather with his laptop at home.  I’ve taught him at least a half a dozen times to check his email, to learn how to type a letter, and to conduct simple web searches.  I would not expect him to provide thoughtful guidance on technological policy in the US.  And yet, we have individuals who are not too far off my grandfather’s age and their bedfellows determining how the internet should be policed.  It doesn’t make sense.  We do need a change, it’s true; we need the experts in the field to provide us with a thoughtful alternative.

SOPA and PIPA are garbage and whimper in Sweedish, respectively.

jesus at 29

Tags

Christianity, Jesus, Theology

I wonder what it was like for Jesus at 29.

Right on the verge of starting a brief but history-bending career as the rabbi of all rabbis, did he question what he was going to do?  Did he keep telling himself that eventually he was going to go down and visit cousin John and get baptized?

Did he second guess getting in the carpentry trades?  His dad’s business paid the bills, sure, but was it fulfilling?  Was it something to wake him up before the sunrise with excitement, or just a job?

Were mom and dad worried that he wasn’t going to settle down, take a wife, and continue the proud lineage of the greatest kings if Israel?  They remembered the visions, but they were so young back then.  Lots of travel back then, it could have been exhaustion or bad food.

He’s got to feel like he’s been made for something more than what he’s doing now.  He heard the stories.  He knows it’s only a matter of time; just keep studying and learning, eventually it’ll happen.  It’ll all make sense.

And when it does, the world will respond in kind with exponential parts adoration and hatred.  Reviled by his peers, but celebrated by raca – the worthless.

But for now, he’s one year removed.  A few hundred sleeps more from awakening the Kingdom.

what’s happened since march…

…has been a lot.  I mean, that’s even an understatement.  I think that had you told me where my life would be in just six months, I wouldn’t have believed you, but here we are.  I will run this down for you, and then discuss what I’d like to do in the future with this blog, and just in general.

This is a description of my life after March 8, 2011:

• I graduated with my MPA on March 20.  I really wanted to see what it was like to graduate in St. John’s, and so I went.  The worst part of graduate graduation in the Winter is you have to wait for every undergrad to get their diploma.  It took an hour.  Just sitting there.  I remember the chair being uncomfortable and shaking E. Gordon Gee’s hand.  I don’t remember what the woman said for the commencement speech (and she warned us that’d happen, anyway).  It ended a period of higher education that spanned from August 2001… almost exactly a decade.
• I started my new job on April 11.  I help to create affordable housing policy for a program that helps move people out of nursing homes into community when they want to leave.  It means I need to have working knowledge of the affordable housing industry as well as Medicaid.  I love my job.  I enjoy the people I work with.  It pays well, and I have good benefits.  I’m even more excited about the idea that this job will position me well for the next one, whatever that’s going to be.  Jesus was right when he said the poor will always be among us.  I love working in a job that helps them on the macro level.  It’s what I wanted to do.
• My brother was wed to his fiancee on April 16.  My first time as best man, it was a wonderful (and rather emotional) day for me.  I watched my little brother get married and start a whole new life.  Our family expanded +1.  We’re a small family, too, so that +1 is significant… like an increase of 20%.
• I met Lindsey McIntosh in person on April 25.  We’d been chatting online a week before then.  We went for tea and a walk that day.  By the time I walked to her home and gave her a kiss goodnight, we had 3 more dates planned.  It was that good.
• I found out my brother and his wife were pregnant with their first child on May 30.  I was of course very excited for them, but their combined age is almost 10 years younger than my parents, and they’re not that old.  But, it turns out that’s why you have families.  Our family expanded +1.
• I asked Lindsey to marry me on August 30.  She said yes.  My most immediate family expanded +1, which marks a 100% increase.  Our other families are now going to be expanding +1.

And so here I am.  I have three new family members, a new job, and am planning for a wedding, and for a new life.  Many of you who have known me for a while know that my heart has always been into having a family over just about anything else.  It’s not to say that I tried to force it, but I was happy when this life finally came.  It’s been years and years in the making, and here I am.

So I hope to actually write again.  To use this as a source of reflection, of thoughts about the world, and more importantly of recording my life.  As always, you all can view as much as you want of it.

Maybe I should come back here…

I still get hits on this blog, and one can never have too many blogs, right?

Look for things soon (I think).

I will be graduating soon, and will need something to dedicate brain time to.

rethinking internet identity

Tags

Career

So I’ve given some time to thinking about the issues of internet identity.  In a world where we all seem to use the internet and the world inside our computers than outside it, I felt like as I approach the time where I’ll be interviewing and looking for full employment, making sure my internet presence is what I want it to be is essential.

And of course we should all be concerned about this: this article in 2007 demonstrates that people are looking at Facebook, MySpace, and now Twitter and other social media sites just to see who we are… and keep in mind that’s three years ago.  I wonder how much that’s changed now.

Newsweek this week published an article pertaining to the closing of the gap between the internet world and the real world based on Mark Zuckerberg’s push open the internet as broadly as possible, believing (and I paraphrase here) that the shadow of our digital and flesh selves should be as small as possible.  He says it should encourage people to see that everyone does foolish things, and will liberalize society a little.  I’m not sure I agree with that, but I do believe in being open, if only for the sake of consistency.

I’ve been a proponent of this since I started working with college students at Gannon and would see how pictures of parties wherein students who were underage would show how much they drank to the Facebook world, and then would make sure that their parents didn’t see the pictures by either not being friends with them, or just selectively hiding photos.  Beside the fact that a future employer will potentially see the photo, what’s the point in doing something if you can’t let everyone know?  Moreover, if you can’t let your parents see something, why put it on Facebook or MySpace in the first place?  In other words, you may as well be consistent, because in the end that inconsistency will catch up with you.  At the best, you get a stern lecture from your parents.  At the worst, you won’t get your dream job because you made some serious missteps.

So I’ve tried to be proactive in my Internet identity.  If you go to my main website you’ll see all of my web presence – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et cetera.  All there for my employer, my friends, my next date, and my parents to see.  It’s on my business card.  You can even get to this blog from there.  And sure, you’ll see a picture of me drinking a beer or two at a Clippers game, but as far as I’m concerned I’d rather live in such a way that if my potential employer saw me anywhere, he or she would feel comfortable hiring me.  Never mind the Christological implications of being the same person wherever you are.

I’d encourage all of you who are in similar boats as I am to take a serious look at your web presence and determine if it’s a reflection of the person you want to be.  You never know who’s going to see it.

my new girlfriend, ohio

I’ve got a new girl.  Her name’s Ohio.

We’ve been friends since I was born.  We lived next to each other – not quite neighbors, but close enough.  We went to the same school together; when I played trumpet, she played the drums in band.

She’s a badass like that.

I liked her parents.  A lot.  Northwest Territory never had slaves.  That’s not something most parents can claim in the US.

In college we lost touch.  I hung with her neighbor, Pennsylvania, who’s hot.  She’s got two beautiful… cities… that I loved to stare at: Pittsburgh, and Erie.  It’s been a torrid affair with PA.  We dated for seven years.  She promised me if I came back after I left she’d pay me, get me a home, and raise my children.

She was going to be my sugar momma.

Then I came back to see Ohio.  Ohio’s always had the girl-next-door look – not hot, but certainly a girl you drank in when you saw her and felt no obligation to spit everything back out.  She’s a bit more ragged than since I last saw her, however.  The last few years haven’t been good for my girl – not able to afford to good food, her hair’s falling out, she’s lost a lot a lot of weight (and she hasn’t been anything but skinny since the 70s).

But, like any man falling hopelessly in love with a woman, I don’t see what she is as much as I see her best self.  I see her strong.  I see her resplendent.  I see her hopeful, and I see her aging ever more gracefully.  She’s not the woman who girded a nation with steel anymore, but she’s still skilled in ways I don’t think she even knows.  She gets used a lot by young folks, and then when they’ve used her up, they move on to sexier states with their siren songs, promising money and fun beyond what my girl can offer.

So one rainy night as we were snuggling in bed, I told her I loved her.  I tired to scoop the air to bring the words back into my mouth, but it was too late.  She said she always knew, and just hoped eventually I’d realize it.  She said she loved me, too.  She said she doesn’t have as much as some of the other women, but she’s home, and she’ll be damned if you don’t dance with the one you came with.

For a brief moment, I saw the fire of her past.  Bright and hot – the type of flame that melts iron.

And so I stay.

some stuff and things.

I like when spring comes.  Especially here in Columbus.  There’s a resonating sigh from the entire city that’s just happy it didn’t collide with anything too bad because of all the ice in the winter.

There’s these trees that are planted everywhere in CMH, and they have these gorgeous little flowers that as the wind blows they begin to fall off, and what you see is a final illusory snowfall.  If anything, it’s just a reminder that the seasons are transitory, and once you get done with one, well, another’s right in front of you.

Speaking of, I’m in a bald season.  Shaved my head twice, and for the first time I remember, I’ve been told I was “hot”.  Facetious or not, when you’ve grown accustomed to “cute” and “handsome” (the unfortunate bounds of the 5-7, “better-looking-than-not”s of the male world), you take hot however you can get it.  This is why my head got shaved more than once.  You can see it on Facebook.

Melissa said that when she looked at the picture, that I had sad eyes.  She’s always been incredibly perceptive about those things, and when I looked at the picture, I see the same thing she does.

Friends
(Check)
Money
(Check)
A well slept opposite sex
Guitar
(Check)
Microphone
(Check)
Messages waiting on me when
I come home
(john m)

I’m not sure what it is.  Maybe it’s nothing.  But, as often has happened in my life, I’m just waiting to turn a corner.

2010 reflection i

2010 has started.

In case you didn’t know that.

I’ve found that I’m approaching this year a little differently than I think I’ve approached any others.  Maybe it’s being older, maybe it’s looking at life from the perspective of events, and less by dates.  Or maybe it’s just simply that the events of 2009 were in no way what I expected.  To be honest, I’m glad it’s gone.  For a recap:

• January-March: Pretty standard insofar as life goes
• March: Melissa and I have a break.  Also known as the slow-leak breakup.
• April: Melissa moves to Columbus.  That brought me so much hope and joy for the future.
• June: Melissa and I break it off.  My decision, and built around a lot of stress, and hurt.  It may have been the right thing, but certainly in the wrong way.  Later that month, she leaves Columbus.  I feel the weight of that each time I think of it.  Takeaway: if you have any hint of something significantly wrong in a relationship, don’t encourage a move one way or another.  I think this was akin to trying to save a relationship by extending yourself physically… it just hides deeper things.
• July: I break my ankle, subsequently ending my summer.
• October: Fender Bender
• November 29: Speeding Ticket and Fender Bender II.  I now have 6 points on my driving record.
• December: A bill that I didn’t know about went into collections without any warning and dropped my credit score 50 points.  I’m still waiting for Mount Carmel to rectify the situation.

I’m not writing this for your pity, but rather I’m writing this as a reminder to myself that no one said life would always be easy or fun, and sometimes you have a crap year.  I’m still blessed beyond what I deserve – I have family, friends, work, and grace.  I’m not saying God and I were always best friends in 2009, but I always knew if I called He’d be on the other line.

So 2010 comes around.  And so far I feel peace.  Part of the problem of having so much happening over and over was that there wasn’t a chance for me to reconcile myself to the events in my life.  A chance to pray.  A chance to not think.  A chance to disappear.  I took Christmas to do that.

And then I remembered so many good things.  Visiting Minneapolis.  Visiting Boston.  Taking an impromptu trip to Manhattan to just grab dinner.  Skiing on ground more than on skis.  Asking 10-year-olds what they want in their neighborhood to which they replied “not a f—ing German Village”.  New Salem Baptist Church.  The OHFA conference.  Starting Public Policy courses.

Here I am.

I am alive.

I am loved.

I am running 3 miles in 30 minutes, and know I can do better.

I am looking forward to holding hands and kissing in ways that cause silly grins and stumbled words.

End of January.  I’m applying to the PhD program in Public Policy.  I’m laughing with new friends about new things.  I wake up with the belief that today is worth the best effort I can muster, and then trusting the Holy Spirit will get me out of bed and bring me to the places where I need to be.

Everyone needs a 2009.  2009 makes 2010 worth something.

jack’s manifesto, or adam’s first short story pt i

Note: This is a work-in-progress.  All comments are solicited and appreciated.  I’ll have 8 other vignettes before the story is through.

MANIFESTO, n, \ˌma-nə-ˈfes-(ˌ)tō\: a written statement declaring

publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer

Jack stood atop the roof of his apartment building an looked straight down from the edge.  When you pay only $375 (gas, electric included!) for a one bedroom, you find that people fix just enough that you have a good chance of not killing yourself.  This, apparently, did not include closing the roof access.

Jack was about eighty-percent sure he was going to kill himself that night.  He did not like the thought of suicide, because it always insinuated that the cause of death was self-inflicted.  In Jack’s case, it was everyone else.  Just simple cause and effect.  The remaining twenty-percent, he figured, was his desire to prove everyone wrong.

“Prove Everyone Wrong” was printed in a stout font at the bottom of a piece of paper folded into nine symmetrical rectangles, worn by multiple openings and closings.  This was Jack’s Manifesto.  He took the folded paper and held it like a gun.  This was his weapon of choice.  Nine phrases, locked in the chamber.  Each one was guaranteed to pierce the skin the second he fired.  He only needed to pull the trigger.

Jack slowly began to reopen the paper and let the bullets fly.

1. FIND SOMEONE TO LOVE

“If there’s one thing I’ve always spotted in a man, it’s bull.” Veronica often began her alcohol-induced tirades this way. Her friends, while often supportive, listened just enough to make the expected nods of affirmation.

“Yeah, all of ‘em. You remember that one boy I had a year ago? What the hell was his name? Oh yeah… Ty’ree. Ty’ree – who did he think he was, all with that splittin’ his name in half like it was some contraction or somethin’. Stupid, stupid, stupid… all men… stupid, stupid, stupid…”

Nod, and a lazy stir of their drinks.

“I could tell he was full of bull, too, ol’ Ty’ree. Talks to me like he knows me. Sends me a text message at work, tells me he’s gonna take care of me and love me and three weeks later he’s asking me for cash like I owe it to him because he cooked me dinner once…”

Nod again. At this point one could listen to Veronica every third phrase and still ascertain what she was saying:

“Lair… Ty’ree… money… money… not-on-my-couch-you-don’t… your mama don’t like me?… waste of time, that’s what he was… I’d had better…”

Twenty minutes pass by and a brand new song blasts through the club, the bass easily shaking the rest of the audience away from the table and Veronica on the dance floor.  Jack doesn’t dance.  Jack’s a dance virgin.  He just hadn’t found the right song he wanted to give my pride and self-esteem away to. These are precious things not given away lightly.

Veronica, however, continued to whore his listening skills.  He’d give in and listen, but only for ascetic reasons.  Everywhere he looked, he saw pairs.  Speakers were always in pairs: left-right, left-right, front-back, top-bottom.  Dancers were in conglomerations of pairs, lovers were in pairs.  And here he was, Veronica’s pairing.  And while she continued to accost his airspace, Jack saw no alternatives, and instead joined in the fray.

“Well, Veronica, Ty’ree just wasn’t your pairing,” he said, but had forgotten the pair idea was just something in his head, and not common knowledge.

“What the hell are you talking about?  Have you been listening to me?  I don’t even know what you’re saying.  Pairing?”

Jack tried to explain, but to no avail. In the end, sometimes it’s better to be the puzzle piece that doesn’t really fit than be the piece that doesn’t connect anywhere at all.

After throwing his arms and legs around, and finding ways to touch as much of his body to Veronica’s while avoiding an erection (thinking about his mother’s general disapproval of his choices tended to work most effectively), Jack asked Veronica to come home with him for the night.  The sex they engaged in that night reminded him of the way he scanned his groceries at the self-checkout line, or received money from the ATM.  As morning broke, he watched her, and decided she was a girl who must love pancakes.  He set about making the best damn pancakes this woman had ever tasted.

Jack brought the three blueberry pancakes adorned with Vermont “the-real-kind-that-you-pay-$30-for-a-tiny-bottle” maple syrup with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice back to an empty bedroom.

Jack was a breakfast sandwich guy, anyway.

2. FIND A JOB YOU CARE ABOUT

boston dreaming

Going to Boston right before the school year started was about the best thing I could do for myself beginning year two of my academic career at Ohio State, trying to figure out why planning and policy matter to God, and hell, anyone else for that matter.

It’s interesting how if you listen for it enough, you being to see how God answers questions for you – some that you didn’t even know you we asking until the lines of logic run themselves in a way that God reminds you He’s sovereign, and well, you’re not.

Two in particular things I’ve reflected on the last couple weeks that got some more clarity through the wonderful conversations of Chris, Hans, Rachel, Taroon, Jake, and all the other random people here I had the pleasure of meeting, spending time with, and asking them if they could have sex with any Hollywood actor or actress who it would be (Mr. Depp is in the lead).

One was a feeling that I was warring with for awhile was a feeling that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be friends with everyone.  In fact, I was beginning to feel I didn’t want to be friends with most people.  It’s not that they’re bad people, or that I’m all of the sudden super anti-social.  No, it’s just that I’ve found that I don’t have time in my life anymore for people that aren’t interesting in some way.

I know that as soon as I write it that sounds elitist.  Ironically, I don’t mean it to, because by interesting, I don’t mean they have to be what one would expect interesting to be, because to tell you the truth I think I’d grow bored of the kid who lived in Africa hunting on daddy’s money and is at Cambridge studying Philosophy because “I wanted to find something that really spoke to me”.

…okay, so maybe that might be interesting.  And maybe I’m defining it improperly, but my buddy Chris and I really talked about this at length with each other, and it happened to find its way into other conversations.  Other friends of mine agreed – they just didn’t hang out with people they didn’t find interesting.

As I’ve thought about it since then, I think I’ve realized what it is.  It’s not I don’t want to deal with uninteresting people.  The uninteresting part is just  a byproduct of something else.  Instead, I don’t really want to spend time with inauthentic people. 

I’m tired of spending time with people that haven’t spent any time figuring out themselves and being that person.  This is why I don’t feel like hob-nobing with the top 1% would solve my dilemma.  People who are authentic, I think, are people who have seen all their good, all their bad, and take it.  It’s not that authentic people are perfect, they’re just aware of their imperfection, and are probably enough at ease with it that it doesn’t get to them too much.

I know one of the counterarguments to what I’m saying is often “well, you just have to get more comfortable with them”.  I call crap on that.  While every sane person will withhold certain things for more intimate locales and bedfellows, they won’t leave conversation to simple self-absorbed small talk.  With so many great, deep topics to concern yourself with, why not?  At the very minimum, shouldn’t someone be able to say what they what they’re about?  Can you, for instance, tell me what you do for a living?  Can you tell me what you think about what I do (for goodness sakes, I work with cities, we live in them… not that hard), and add an anecdote to it from your own experience?  Do you like… stuff?   Can you quote that Simpsons episode – any episode?

The reason why I think it’s being inauthentic as well, is that I think it’s reversible in both directions.  People can become more authentic, people can become less.  You can hear it in their conversations.  In the way they lead their lives. 

Not for just themselves.

The biggest hallmark of authenticity in my mind is a life lived for something outside yourself.  Think about the people you respect.  Why?  What did they do?  Now think about a bunch of people you don’t care about all that much.  What do they do?

You see?

I give slack to some people within my generation, because we still are trying to figure things out.  One should never expect an 18 year old to be authentic – most of them don’t even know much outside themselves and their world.  But after college, I don’t know if you have much excuse.  By then you choose to live for yourself or something else.  And even in the midst of the most altruistic things lie people who are in it for #1.

We’re even encouraged by Jesus (the most interesting man ever to live… I mean, polish of a couple Guiness with a dude who’s all man and all God and you tell me how that’s not interesting) that if we want a life worth living, we need to surrender the one we’ve got.  The thing is that I don’t think that’s just a Jesus thing.  There are plenty of non-Christians that I think are authentic.  They found something more important than themselves to live for.  They listen to things more important than them, they seek out things more interesting than themselves.

God help me to everyday be authentic.  To be more interesting in You and the world and less in myself.

God help me to be interesting.

thebestthingisayaboutsomething, i

So how’s this for a new idea: repackage Head, Heart, Hands and put it on the blog once a week.  I miss being able to do HHH because it gave me an opportunity to look at the world around me and attempt on the good and bad about it, and try to provide alternatives.  So, here I sit at the Grandview Ave Caribou Coffee with my little Netbook.

Recently on Facebook, I had posted an article from Ad Busters magazine about Hipsters, and their place in culture by Andrew Haddow.  In particular, one part struck me:

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

As an optimist, as a Christian who is aligned with a redemptive worldview and celebrates Christ’s work in this world, and as someone who tries to give people the benefit of the doubt, I still can’t help but agree with the sentiment. 

I’ve said before that I’ve secretly wanted to be hipster.  I own an American Apparel jacket and some t-shirts (I like fair labor), the last 12-pack I bought was PBR (cheap + not completely swill = bought), and I have an appreciation for indie music, because while sometimes it simply sucks, I’m glad there are still enough people who are willing to attempt creativity without completely giving in corporately. 

However, the malady of the Hipster (counter?)culture is that I think it lacks a (the) capability/desire/recognition to answer the “why” question of their life any deeper that what’s immediately in front of the screen or phone or glossy ad in front of them.

Haddow speaks to this a little more earlier in the article:

Hipsterdom is the first "counterculture" to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

I would go so far as to say this is not limited to Hipsters, but just about every classification of people that an agency is capable of producing an ad for.  And my generation specifically (Millennials or whatever crap you want to call us) continues to allow itself to be vulnerable to this.  This is easily found when you ask someone in their mid born between 1978-1985 why are there doing anything.  Ask the guy next to you why he rides the bus.  Ask the kid why he goes to the parties.  Ask the senior getting her engineering degree why she’s doing that.  I get shrugged shoulders more often than not, and certainly more often than I wished.

I’m sure this is not a problem endemic to just my peoples, but I am sure it is exacerbated amongst them.  And it concerns me as we are in the very early stages of asserting ourselves in someway as leaders in this society that the balance of us are going to become completely irrelevant because we’re chasing the scene.

The best immunization against irrelevancy, I believe, is a deeper sense of purpose – knowing the “why”.  Living in a larger why helps in maintaining integrity, and I think staves of deeper insecurities.  People obviously feel this is important, or none of us would have ever heard of Rick Warren.  In this leading edge group of peers I have, however, I fear our purpose is encapsulated in consumerism, which is personified at its worst in the Hipster subculture.

In other words, I’m pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg now owns the majority of my peer’s souls, who in turns sells it to whomever dictates cool.  Hipsters at the very least recognize the irony in others (while perhaps not in themselves).

I don’t think most of the rest of us ever will.

kinda like the old american standard days…

When I used to work at American Standard, I would leave the blog website up all day and would come to it whenever I couldn’t deal with my work for awhile.  I’d type progressive through an idea and by the end of the day would have a nice entry for public consumption.  It kept my mind sharp amid the deluge of statistics, and I found I actually did both jobs better.  This has been proven now on shop floors, and I’m sure will apply to rendering site plans.

I’ve been motivated to write again, mostly because I sat down and read through my blog again and thought “hey, this isn’t all that bad!”  Furthermore, I like the ability to go back through my life since 2001 and know what I was thinking at the time.  And to tell you the truth, I miss things like “head, heart, and hands” which gave me a chance to talk about very simple things that meant something to me in my heart.

So I don’t think I’ll be a every day blogger.  I doubt I’ll ever make money off the deal, but at least I’ll write more.

Be looking.  I have a lot on my plate to get out.

planning is a waste of time?

My life has changed a little bit since the last time I posted, and I have bit more free time to dedicate to thinking and understanding why I do the things I do.  It’s something we should all repetitively take stalk in.  It’s not to say I don’t know what I want out of my life, but rather I want to continue to check and recheck my motives, and as the trajectory of my life continues to launch, I’m adjusting rightly.

So, as many of you know, I’m still doing the City and Regional Planning schtick.  For my first year I did well grade-wise, and I enjoy my internship.  But as the year progressed I began to think to myself “why is it that I do this work?”  I started to really dig into the question as a result of my Planning Theory class, and just my own rumination on the topic.

After watching plenty of college students languish in the “why-am-I-here-why-do-I-need-to-care-about-college” thing (which, for the record, I think at 18 is okay), I think coming to graduate school I should know.  After all, I have $40,000+ riding on it, and don’t want to waste my money.

I want to start posting these thoughts online because I’m hoping some of you that:

1. Do the Jesus thing
2. Do the Planning thing
3. Do both
4. Do neither

may have some insight into these things.  So I’ll throw some ideas out there, I’ll hope for some feedback, and I’ll keep moving on.  Let me say that I’m trying on some levels to be critical so that in the next year when I walk away I have a powerful reason why CRP is important, and why I should always be doing the work.  Furthermore, I’m also try to throw out as many ideas.  Those of you who may read this, please don’t take offence to what I’m saying.  I guess the bigger issue of that is if you take offense to this, you need to maybe grow some thicker skin because a planning board will probably eat you alive.

Here’s the first thing I’ve come to realize:

I think most of the reasons why Planning is worth anything are lousy.  I think 75% they don’t hold water.  For instance, there’s an aesthetic argument (Planners exist to make things look nice).  I think this is not a great argument for a couple reasons:

1. Post-Modernity: How, in our current culture, can I say one development is nicer than another?  How does it look better?  Relativism makes it substantially harder for me as a planner to say “density is great” and for you to agree.
2. Free Market forces: If the free market is left unabated, won’t it eventually make the right decsion?  People won’t buy houses they don’t want.  This should, as resources become more scarce and people begin to not afford certain housing types, lead to quality affordable housing.
3. Value Added: This is something I mentioned in an essay I wrote for class, that Planning is at worst simply Value Added work.  We do nothing necessary to life.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs would seem to put planning as a “Self-Actualization” activity… if we are an aesthetic profession, we make things nicer.  People will being to secure themselves (ie posit #2).

At the worst, I think planners are the plastic surgeons of the policy/design world: we know the things that make us good doctors – hell, we went to the school and got the degree – but we’re more concerned about vanity most of the time, excluding that feel-good junket we take for people that are poorer than us and fix their housing version of cleft palates.

So that’s all I got time for right now, but I welcome all the comments and criticisms of this idea.

I’m going to be updating soon…

I need to update.

Not really for anyone but myself.

Over the 8(!) years I’ve had this thing, I’ve used it to think through my world, figure things out, and figure if someone wondered by, they’d read it, and if they wanted to let me know what they’re thinking and figuring out, great.

Deep down, more than ever in my life, I feel like I want to do something big… take all the great ideas I think about for 30 seconds right before I completely fall asleep and actually make them real and damn all the naysayers… I want to be the thing I get behind, not getting behind someone else’s thing.

I keep thinking “I want to shake foundations…”, and I believe more and more that God’s going to use me in a real and powerful way.  At least I keep praying to that end.

And right now, awashed in ennui (as is my custom in May and June), I need to believe it more than ever.

20 at 10; 10 at 20: Me and Support Raising 2008-2010

So I think this is the very first time I’ve ever put anything down about Support Raising in my blog, which you think would be something that I’d talk about because it’s been a major part of my life for the last 3 years, and will be for the next 2 years, but I thought I’d let my blogging community aware of my needs as I get started in Columbus.

Currently my support needs have changed, and if everything else stays the same, I need $2,361.50 over the course of the year, or roughly $20 a month from 10 people, or $10 a month from 20 people.  The way my support works is that I get a lot of support annually in August, and then progressively use that up.  So I’m making a personal goal of finding 10 people that could support my ministry to architecture students at Ohio State.  I’m excited for the possibilities, as it’s a place where there isn’t any serious campus ministry, and a chance to try something new in a place that has no restrictions.  I have some ideas I’d love to share with you if you’re interested.

Anyway, maybe you, oh dear blog reader, have thought to yourself maybe you’d like to support some cause, and maybe have it be something close to you.  This is a chance to change the lives of hundreds of people, and to be a part of God’s miraculous transformative work.  $20 a month is a small amount, and $10 a month is even smaller.

If this is something you are interested in doing, check out the website below… periodically I’m going to keep all of you updated on what’s going on, and hopefully soon have the 20 new people on my team!

Thanks.

This is the direct webpage, if you click “A CCO Staff Member” and select Adam Anderson, the money will go to me.

Or, if you want to check out more options, click here

back-to-back… that might be too much…

But man, have I got something for you!

I was thinking of this issue anyway, and it came up as I was looking on Facebook (new wedding photos.  There is no man that looks bad in a tuxedo).

This was the advertisement I saw:

Alright, there are a couple things about this:

1. If being lazy and rich would require me to look like that guy, I’m out.  I’ll take hard-working and poor.
2. $1000 a day, for filling out surveys?  We all know that’s obviously the catch, and hence why this is RIDICULOUS.
3. But yet it finds airtime on Facebook, which, relatively of course, is reputable?

something of an update

So yeah.  Sorry about my extended absence.  It’s not that I haven’t thought about blogging or anything.  It’s that this hasn’t been a priority of late.  Which it should be, mostly because it helps me think in a more stripped down sort of way.

And if what I’ve seen in culture is any example, people for some reason love hearing other people’s thoughts.

So, the 10 of you who still read my blog, let me “drop some knowledge” if you will.

1. I am going to Ohio State in the fall to pursue Urban Planning: I was accepted to Penn and OSU, and chose OSU on account it’s $40,000 cheaper and encourages internships (theoretical knowledge + pragmatic experience = best learning in my opinion), but it’s for some reason this move is more daunting than any other.  I think because I’ve been in Columbus a grand total of, oh, 48 hours, and to commit to being someplace for 2 years seems daunting.  But it isn’t much different than Erie, three years ago.  It just all feels different.  There’s something about not being thrusted out of something that makes it harder to go.   I didn’t have to leave Gannon.  No one else is.  It’s just me.  But I know, to the best of my knowledge, that this is what I’m supposed to do, what God wants.  And I have to do what I’ve done before – take a few steps in faithful service every day, and I will be fine.
2. Phil Kondas is married.  Wow.
3. I have a Master’s Degree in Higher Education (almost): I’ve completed all the requirements save about 12 pages of work.  I’ve never struggled with something more in my life.  A few pages on my thesis and a paper about worldview.  How about that.  I’ve already written better than 500 words of junk on my blog, which would easily fill a page two pages in an essay.  Which leads me to believe that I’m being lame, and should be writing my thesis.  Instead I’m writing here.
4. I still think about subjects.  I’ll start writing about those again soon.
5. Head, heart, hands was one of the most enjoyable things I did at Gannon.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now.  I’ll write my Methodology and some of my Findings tonight.  Let’s say I won’t wait multiple months before putting something on here again, ok?

head, heart, hands: american slavery

27,000,000 people right now as we speak are slaves in the world.

27,000,000. That’s a lot. Texas has somewhere around 23,000,000 people. That means that the entirety of Texas plus Kentucky are enslaved somewhere around the world. They’re enslaved in the sex trade, they’re enslaved in the fields, and they’re enslaved in restaurants all over, and in fact right in front of us.

This is something that shocks me. To live in 2008 and to have all of the gifts and benefits that we have, and there’s people right next to me that very well might be unable to be free. That’s wild.

It begins to make me wonder about my freedom. I think that I’m free. I woke up this morning, got breakfast, wrote this article, went to lunch, did some more work, met with some people, and later I’ll do more work and go to bed. This is my decision; I could do nothing today if I wanted to, and it’s my choice.

And I suppose it’s become my choice to sell myself, too. This morning, when I had coffee, it was Starbucks coffee. I went to lunch at Bob Evans. I’m wearing an Old Navy Sweater and Jeans. I’m addicted to selling myself to things that I want and I like.

This is not to minimize the current amount of slavery, but I really wonder if, ultimately, any of us are really free. How many of us aren’t bonded by something else.

I graduated from Grove City College with a degree with Marketing, and if there’s something I remember most in our discussions there about being a good marketer, it was that if we kept going, we’d be given a lot of power. We’d have a power of influence in people’s lives. An influence in a part of people’s lives that’s particularly important – your money and what you want. The average American is bombarded by 3,000 advertisements a day, or roughly one every 20 waking seconds. My job, as a marketer, is to make my 20 seconds stand out in your mind the most. If you want my product, you’ll buy it, and I’ll make money, find products I want and buy them from another marketer.

What enslaves us to this system, I think, is that we really don’t need half of the stuff we have, we just think we do. I know this to be true on a personal level, as my emergency food supply also known as my love handles are testament to. Marketers, as part of the equation, make me believe my wants are absolute needs, and I, like lamb to the slaughter, gladly put my money down to take what they’re selling. I even know they’re doing this, yet if it’s sexy and sleek and makes me feel better, I’ll take it.

This last week I just got back from New York City, and Times Square. Over and over again, the people with me commented on how what a den of consumerism it is. So many towering, luminous lights telling me I need WaMu, CNN, and Avenue Q. Meanwhile, there’s 27,000,000 people enslaved. I wonder if one of those pre-teen girls enslaved right now in Indonesia in the sex trade were brought to Times Square if she’d be so impressed with Washington Mutual, or if she’d just be happy that she was standing on 46th and Broadway free.

In my mind, the saddest state of slavery are those who are enslaved and don’t even know it.

the God sessions, vol i

Head, Heart, Hands: God

So for the last semester and the beginning of the semester, I’m written about a lot of different things. I like that. There’s a lot of things worth talking about. Whether we talk about riding a bus, dating someone, breaking up with someone, getting mad about laundry, it’s all about life, and the pursuit of living it well. In fact, there’s isn’t much I haven’t talked about, except perhaps one thing you’d expect me to talk about: God.

This was intentional. It wasn’t like I left my Jesus bias at home when I wrote to you. In fact, I think I wrote about God each time I wrote in the Knight, but I didn’t feel it necessary to make mention of Him. That’s one of my favorite things about God, actually, that I think He’s just as obvious in the times you don’t see Him – but that’s another article, and I don’t want to give any of you too much.

Anyway, so I made the decision over the next few weeks to talk about God a little more overtly. But, before I get into some of things I want to talk about, I want to make some ground rules.

First, by and large, when I write to you, I’m not going to try to “convert” you to or from anything. If you are going to choose to make some drastic lifestyle change from a few hundred words in a University newspaper, I’d rather it not be mine. Instead, I’m going try to give you some perspective.

Some of you have been doing the Jesus thing for many years, and that’s great. I can give you perspective from someone who’s right there with you. Maybe you’ve started to wonder how God fits into your daily purchases: does God care about your toilet paper purchase, for instance. Important, I know.

Some of you have been doing the Jesus thing for just a little, and that’s great, too. I can give you some perspective from someone who’s been doing this a little longer, and maybe took the same path you did. Maybe you’ve started to wonder how God fits into your daily purchases, too: does God really care about whether I get five or fifteen beers, for instances. Also important.

Finally, someone of you aren’t doing the Jesus thing. Sometimes it doesn’t fit your worldview, sometimes you were really hurt from someone who said they loved God, but it didn’t seem to add up in their actions. I can give you some perspective from someone who really does love this God person, but loves you too, and would love nothing more than just sit and talk to you about what you think about God. You might not wonder how God fits in your daily purchases, but at least maybe you wonder why it matters to someone else. This is also important.

If you have been hurt by someone who a Christian, let me say I’m sorry, too. Christians can be hurtful and petty and silly. It’s part of being human, unfortunately.

Finally, let me say that I’m not here to necessarily to say what you want to hear. I hope you’re happy after reading what I said, but ultimately I don’t have the time or energy to placate you. Nor do I want to. So it’s possible you love God, too, and still be mad at me. That’s fine. Facebook me and let me know. I’ll buy you a coffee and we’ll talk. I guarantee it.

riding the bus

I like to ride the bus. Erie, for a mid-sized city, does a good job creating bus routes that go to important places. The M buses, for example, all go to the mall from Perry Square, and the 30 bus goes from Perry Square to Giant Eagle on 12^th Street. Often, if I’m not on a schedule, I like to take the bus to get my groceries and relax at Panera when I need to read.

When I ride the bus, I don’t see many of you. In fact, I hardly see anyone like me on the bus, either. It turns out most white guys in their mid-20s with a car don’t choose to ride the bus. Inevitably, then, the people who ride the bus in Erie are those who ride it out of necessity. Maybe the person in the first seat doesn’t have a car. The woman in the back can’t afford the car she has, and the guy next to you only has one car and his wife is using it. In any of those cases, something makes it impossible for them to use anything else but their car.

That doesn’t mean they’re poor, though. Right? I mean, many of you don’t have cars, and college students in America have the most expendable income of just about anyone in the world. I’m not poor, either. I own a car, a laptop, a TV, a fancy cell phone, and I have a good job that pays for all of it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was coming back from Giant Eagle on the 30 bus. The bus was turning off of 10^th Street onto State Street, and looked to my right and saw the new Erie Bank. Inside was a party celebrating the opening, and the individuals inside were the type of folks you’d expect to be at a grand opening of a bank: older gentleman in nice suits with pretty wives with champagne flutes in their hands. They stood in circles of three or four, and seemed politely interested in each other’s conversations, although not completely engrossed, either. Other people were walking around with hors d’oeuvres, doing their jobs and diligently as possible. As I sat in the bus, however, I noticed that not one of those guests looked outside. They didn’t need care about the world outside of their bank party: everything they needed was right there.

Then I looked to the people I was riding with. Each one of them had their eyes affixed on the bank scene. Sure, it could have been the thing to look at and a stop light, but the stares were deeper than that. Less of a desire of wanting to be in the bank, but more of wanting the ability to be in that bank in they choose to. Yet, they were separated, and sitting on the bus, it was pronounced. Between me and a man in the bank were the bus window, a good 10 feet of space outside, and another large window. So many barriers to people just like me, but totally different from me as well.

In just a few seconds the bus turned, and everyone went back to looking at what they were looking at before.

on ben folds, travis stevens, and their last legacy in my life

Travis introduced me to this album.  I’m a big Ben Folds fan, but at the time had never heard about his album Fear of Pop, Vol. 1.  It’s this side project he made in the 90s while starting out with the 5 (I think their self titled had just been released… maybe Naked Baby Photos too… I’m not too sure).  Anyway, it was as if Ben had a month and nothing to do, and made one gem of an album.

My favorite song?  A William Shatner/BF collaboration.  So priceless.  Here are the lyrics:

In Love

Original Artist: Ben Folds

I remember the night we met,
That night we sat entwined,
Under summer skies,
I looked into your eyes,
And you looked into mine.

You said “You’re not like the rest”,
And I nodded.
“No one understands me” you said,
And I nodded once again as if to agree,
That all men are indeed the same,
Somehow, you say, I was different.

For months on end I maintained a veneer of sincere interest,
As if I was listening as you relived every page of self-help and new age that you’d read,
And I went in for the kill,
I’d read the same books,
I learned to ape the motions of a sensitive human being,
And we were oh so happy,
But you found things to fix,
And I knew it was time to move on.

So now you have me completely figured out,
You feel sorry for me,
I can’t express my feelings,
I can’t tell the truth,
We are all alike,
At puberty I was sworn to secrecy by the international brotherhood of lying fickle males,
I can’t tell you anything,
And I can’t commit,
You’re right,
I can’t commit to you.

I will always treasure our time together,
I don’t feel enough of anything to harbour the kind of disdain that you’ll maintain,
You painted me into what you wanted to see,
That’s fine,
But you will never know me.

well, i’m not sure who i’m going to vote for yet…

…but I’m sure it won’t be Rudy Giuliani. Not only did I not like him in the debates after Iowa, but this might have done it:

Really? I mean, REALLY? You could have said “Yeah, when I divorced my wife that was hard”, but instead it was 9/11.

I’m getting more and more frustrated at the fact that the whole 9/11 thing has become nothing but parody. It’s one half Rudy’s fault and one half ours. First, Rudy has become a caricature. He’s playing the same thing over and over and over, showing that he’s the man who helped NYC through 9/11. Don’t get me wrong, he did a fine job, but consider all the help he had. Ray Nagin won’t be saying “Katrina, Katrina, Katrina”, and here’s the reason in his own words:

We authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq, lickity split. After 9/11, we gave the President unlimited powers, lickity split, to take care of New York and other places.

You mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place so unique that when you mention “New Orleans” anywhere around the world, everybody’s eyes light up. You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people who have died and thousands more are dying every day, we can’t get figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need.

I mean, I’m not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly. And I don’t know whose problem it is; I don’t know if it’s the governor’s problem or if it’s the President’s problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down the two of them and figure this thing out right now.

Exactly. Rudy was given so many opportunities that he could have done nothing and still have been proclaimed as a hero. As a result, he’s running on that alone.

The worst part, though, is that we, as Americans have given him to think that’s a good idea. We want that caricature. Have we really slipped so far as to say “well, Mayor of NYC during 9/11 = good president”?

As I think about it, there seems to be two diverging cultures: the one that refuses to think, and the one that is cynical… I think the natural reactions from the last 6 years of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Anyway, before this becomes rambling, one more thing. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert may be the best they’ve ever been right now, because it’s them. What I love most about Jon Stewart (if you’ve ever read this blog before, you know I love the guy), are the things he says outside of his show. Now, it’s just him, and he’s downright sardonic. Angry in the best way possible.

As much as I love the message of hope and change that Obama Obama and Edwards Democrats everyone is giving now, I think I still need to have someone who tells me that this world is still a little ridiculous.

Put another way, I love God a lot a lot a lot… but have you seen the platypus? Freaking crazy!

I’m going to try to write twice a week.

peace,

a

things seen and heard while working on a paper at starbucks, volume i

• Woman who had moon boots on walking as though there were six inches of snow at every step
• Child who exclaimed “that fire alarm!  It’s the same we have at our school!”
• A woman walk past me with a stroller, and then come back past me on the street without a stroller.
• Businessmen with audacious hats, including a Santa cap (who I just saw walk past me twice) as well as a really tacky wool cap.
• One of my students connecting with one of the older men I always see in here (Phil is his name).  It’s really loving, and not in a way that would creep you out.  Sort of like a grandfather to a granddaughter.
• A guy attempting to be flirtatious with the barista with a santa’s cap up.  It was a miserable attempt.
• The student mentioned didn’t recognize me.  I think it’s the facial hair.
• Phil saw someone else, and it turns out this other guy has a wife. Phil was overjoyed by it, because the man who was married didn’t seem like someone who would readily be married.

i hate ipods, vol ii

So last week, for what it probably the first time, I kind of got mean. Well, maybe not mean, I suppose. More like I just say as many sweet, inspirational things as I usually try to. When you open up to page 5 or 6, I want you to feel like every week there’s a guy there who is going to help you see things a little more brightly, a little more healthy, and maybe you become a little better as a result.

Last week, however, sparked something in me that I want to talk about for one more week, and then I’ll probably get back to more appealing topics, like finishing what I was going to talk about regarding grad schools.

We live in one of the most connected societies ever. If I had to get a hold of you for whatever reason, I have all sorts of options: I could write you here in the Knight, I could Facebook you, I could blog you, I could text you, I could email you, I could even send you a letter (but who does that any more).

Ironically, none of these require any sort of physical contact, which then makes me think that while we’re the most connected societies ever, we’re also one of the least connected. Which then makes me think about the iPod problem.

When I see more ears plugged with iPod than not, I can’t help but feel we’re destroying the last real places where we can contact each other: when we’re literally face to face. Again, this is not to say that I don’t love what any MP3 player can offer its owner. In an ironic twist of fate, I thought I had lost my iPod coming home from Philadelphia, but it turned out that it was just in my luggage. But still, I was a little sad. After all, I spent almost $200 on that device, and I have a hard time running without it.

It’s just at times I wonder if the one thing we want is the one thing we run away from. When I talk to my residents, my friends, and some of you folks out there, I sense the one thing you’re looking for is someone to listen to you. A friend. Someone to play racquetball with on Sunday afternoons, and maybe grab a beer and talk about life with. If I had a dollar for each person who has confided in my they’d like to get married sooner rather than later in order to share special moments and intimacy with I could retire now. That’s not even a joke.

People want to feel valued. Special. Last I knew, however, that meant actually talking to people. Not Facebooking them. Not blogging with them. It means face-to-face conversation beyond last weekend’s party.

These people are walking past you every day. Real connections are slipping by our hands because we’d rather draw into ourselves, disappearing from the world, when deep down, if we were honest, we rather talk to someone about how our day is going.

So I’ll make you all a deal. Next Tuesday, December 11^th, I’ll be sitting in Waldron at noon. Talk to me. I will ask you how your day is. I will find out something I don’t know about you. And I’ll connect with you. After all, I asked you to connect with someone instead of your iPod this Christmas. I’m making it easy on you.