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2 Comments Posted on Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

The Nickbob Ability Test

 

In the spring of 1992 in 5th grade, I decided to make recess more interesting during our “free play” days outside on the playground by inventing a secret society.  I would recruit 1 to 4 of my friends to take the Nickbob Ability Test during each P.E. class.  It was a combination of physical skill, physical agility, and artistic effort:

Physical Skill: With hula hoops laid out flat strategically on the asphalt, the recruits had to throw rocks from a certain distance and land them in the hula hoops.  There were five levels of difficulty they had to complete to make it to the Physical Agility portion.

 

Physical Agility: Using my friend Michael Brooks’s stopwatch, I would time the recruits as they ran through the playground.  They had to make it through the “obstacle course” within a minute and 45 seconds.  Then they could finish the last portion of the Nickbob Ability Test, the Artistic Effort portion.

 

The Artistic Effort portion simply meant the recruits had to draw and color a picture of themselves and give it to me.  I kept them as a collection of those who passed the Nickbob Ability Test.

 

All together there were about 30 of my classmates who participated.  I know for a fact that the following people took and passed it:  Brian Winkles, Amanda Duckett, Meg Guice, Susan Johnson, Alex Igou, Jenny McElroy, Michael Brooks, and Jonathan Grupp.

 

The few.  The proud.  The… Nickbob Ability Test Takers?…

 

 

6 Comments Posted on Storytelling, Uncategorized

Red Foxes are Majestic, Magical, Medieval Creatures; Especially When It Snows in the South

When people from outside of the South think of the weather down here, my guess is they probably assume we hardly ever get snow. And while our precipitation amount doesn’t compare to New England or the Midwest, every year I’ve been alive it’s snowed at least once during the winter season. (It even snowed once in April of 1988; I got out of school early that day).

 

And yes, it only takes an inch or two to shut down the whole town because most cities only own one snow plow, if that. Plus we’re not used to driving in it. There’s no shame in that.

Yesterday as I walked through Aspen Grove Park to Border’s as I do every day during my lunch break, I noticed that my footprints were the only ones in the snow. This mental image popped in my head of a Red Fox. Evidently I associate Red Foxes with snow and woods.

 

A little while later as I walked back through the park to my office, I saw animal footprints I wasn’t familiar with. I was used to seeing people walk their dogs there, surrounded by all the squirrels on their apparent cocaine highs. So I assumed these were raccoon prints.

About 45 minutes later back at my desk, one of my co-workers who was on the phone at the time, started pointing out the floor-to-ceiling windows we have as walls in our office. It was a big Red Fox. Less than a 100 feet away. Coming from the park I just got back from, journeying all the way around the building with its glass walls.

 

There is just something truly mesmerizing about a Red Fox. It’s so rare to see one in real life, especially right around the corner from a Starbucks. Watching that fox make his way around our office made me feel like I was in a magical medieval movie like The Princess Bride or something. Watching a fox trot through the snow in a business development is enchanting.

 

I can’t stop thinking about that beautiful, rare, red creature. I want to tame it. Make it my loyal pet. Man’s best friend. The Red Fox.

In fact, I’m having trouble thinking of a more beautiful animal in this whole world. Magnificent and majestic. It’s no coincidence that Red Foxes have been a part of folklore for centuries.

And in more modern culture like the recent movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox. And the 1973 Walt Disney Robin Hood cartoon (where Red Foxes took the place of people). And Star Fox for N64. And in the ‘80’s cartoon show, David the Gnome, he rode on Swift the Fox, who was always getting a splinter in his paw.

Looking at a Red Fox in real life can be confusing. Am I actually looking at a real fox or is it an anthropomorphic clone that escaped from Chuck E. Cheese’s? Yes, foxes are that awesome.

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healthnutshell: “Gotta” Vs. “Get To”

I’m learning what it means to “observe the Sabbath.”

Recently I read an article that gave the top ten reasons why certain people live to be over 100 years old. Unsurprisingly, “a less stressful lifestyle” and “a more active lifestyle” were both on that list. At first glance, it seems those two traits would clash. But after stumbling upon some information on the lifestyles of Seventh Day Adventists, I realize they live out a great model of being active and yet less stressed. And reports show they live longer, healthier lives than the rest of us.

They take seriously one of the Ten Commandments that we tend to ignore: They keep the Sabbath holy. For Seventh Day Adventists and Jews, it’s Saturday. For the rest of us, it’s Sunday. I agree with them that that Saturday is actually the Sabbath, but I don’t care, I just go along with the crowd and pretend that it’s Sunday with the Protestants.

The day of the week isn’t important to me. The model of resting on the 7th day is. God worked 6 days to create the world then rested on the 7th.

What God didn’t do was this: Work 5 days, take off the 6th, then on the 7th stay really busy all day with church events. To me, that’s the Christian American model that is mainstream, and it doesn’t work. Because we’re not resting on Sunday, we’re busy with “Christian stuff”. That’s missing the whole point. And for many, it’s causing burn-out.

 

Something different about the church I attend in Nashville is this: They only have a Sunday morning service. (Not even a Wednesday night meeting.) The pastor wants his congregation to spend more time with their families, not working on church activities or having to go home after lunch, only to get out again for another church service and/or training class. Our pastor stresses the importance of meeting with a “small group” during the week at someone’s house. That takes the place of the church fellowship and Bible study that occurs at many churches on Sunday night.

The idea is this: Instead of being constantly busy all week long with life’s events, randomly getting lucky enough to find pockets of free time to relax, I have begun to set aside Sunday as the day of relaxation, as directed in the Ten Commandments.

My struggle at first with this was, “What is work?” I knew I didn’t want to be like the Pharisees of Jesus’s time who were so anal that they thought walking more than a certain distance or even feeding livestock was a sin. They got all judgmental over the issue.

The difference with my approach is this: I don’t care what other people do on Sunday. The observance of the Sabbath is for my own good. God intended me to be busy for 6 days straight, then relax on the 7th. My bodily was physically, spiritually, and emotionally designed that way.

As I have began truly observing the Sabbath for the first time in my life, what I have learned so far is that I am even busier now from Monday to Saturday. It means the grocery shopping, household chores, and random errands that my wife and I usually did on Sunday now have to been done on Saturday afternoon. It means not sleeping in on Saturday as long. It means those tedious tasks that got pushed off until Sunday afternoon are now completed after the Biggest Loser goes off on Tuesday night.

But then Sunday is free. We go to church on Sunday morning. Then the rest of the day is wide open. For long naps. To go out for a nice meal if we want to. To watch movies. To go for a drive. To visit with friends. To do nothing. Just to relax, whatever that entails.

I had the wrong idea for all these years, thinking that a day of rest meant “a day of boredom”. Or a day of sleep. Or a day of sitting in a quiet room meditating about things that made me feel “Christian”. But to better understand the concept, I’ve replaced the word “rest” with “relaxation”. Sometimes resting means sleeping, but it also means enjoying the day by just vegging out. Doing whatever I want to do.

The best way I have found to realize what I will or will not to on Sunday is the “gotta or get to” method:

I “gotta” go to Target to exchange that air filter. I gotta clean out the closet. These things I gotta do or, have to do, are the annoying things I consider work. Things that keep me from relaxing. Therefore if there’s anything I gotta do, I will not do it on a Sunday.

But there are also things I “get to” do. I get to finish building that Corn Hole set with my friend Josh. I get to go for a nice three mile run. I get to put together that photo album I haven’t had time for. These are all physical activities, yet I get to do them. In other words, I want to do them. I get enjoyment from doing them. They are relaxing.

Is the activity something I have to do or I want to do? Regardless of the amount of physical activity it takes. Resting is more than refraining from work. So much of what we’ve been missing by not truly observing the Sabbath is the mental and physical rest we deeply need. This day of rest is a way God allows us to have sanity through all our inevitable busyness.

So how is it possible to be both more active and less stressed out? Follow the 4th Commandment and see what happens. It works for the Seventh Day Adventists. And me.

1 Comment Posted on Nostalgia, Uncategorized

Dr. Deja Vu: The Scenic Route

If I could go back in time and speak to the version of myself from ten years ago, I would give myself “good advice”. About which college to go to, what to major in, what hobbies to take up, and where to live after I graduate college. About what to say to people and what not to say. There are a lot of things I would tell myself to do differently. So that I could become the best me.

But then I would be a much different person today. In essence, I wouldn’t be me. Though I would have life figured out, it wouldn’t be my life.

From 1995 to 2006, I spent hundreds of hours writing and recording and performing music. All that time, it seems all I really did was keep myself entertained. At the surface, it led to nothing lasting.

But writing hundreds of songs made it easy for me to write for this website. It took an old hobby to make a new one.

If I went back to myself ten years ago and told myself to take up an interest in daily creative writing (instead of music) so I could eventually have a website that a small corner of the world reads, the younger version of myself probably wouldn’t have been very motivated.

Life is made up of countless bland surprises that end up shaping who we are.  The ordinary turns into the exciting.

And of course my musical past is only one minor detail in the strand of events that brings me to my present day.  But without it,  I wouldn’t have moved to Nashville to pursue a musical career and a year later met my wife.

So what’s the best advice I can give myself today? Don’t go back in time and give yourself advice. It would only mess up everything. Not help it.

As much as I try to structure and plan out my life, it has ended up being something slightly different instead. Instead of taking the interstate, by instinct I end up on the scenic route every time. Capturing my current thoughts and perspectives in my writings which become like snapshots. Scenic route snapshots.

“And when I look behind on all my younger times, I’ll have to thank the wrongs that led me to a love so strong.” – “Perfectly Lonely” by John Mayer

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LOST: Season 6 Pre-cap

We are just a few weeks away from the final season and we can hardly wait. There are 23 million of us Losties in the world. We are an underground society that no one else understands when we talk about the Dharma Initiative and Jacob and the statue. While others gave up after the first or second or even third season, we have continued to thrive on LOST thrills.

As we anticipate the final episodes, we do have one major concern: Will the final episode be a cliffhanger just like every other episode? Or some dumb cop-out like, it was all a dream or just the imagination of an 8 year old Autistic boy? (Those were actual final episodes for some shows back in the ‘80’s…)

The answer: no. I have been keeping up with all the interviews of the Lost writers. It is very important to them that the characters’ stories have a beginning, middle, and end. And that the LOST journey will be a satisfying one. So we can enjoy February through May with ease.

As far as hints for the final season of LOST, I have collected a few from the interviews I’ve read. The final season will most resemble the first. Charlie, Claire, and Boone will be back. As far as Juliet’s fate, by reading between the lines it sounds like she actually died at the end of the Season 5 finale. But at the same time, she will still be on Season 6.  But without Juliet, Sawyer will go back to being the old Sawyer.  And less emphasis on The Dharma Initiative, more on the Dharma-Michigan Connection, whatever that means.

A new change is that instead of relying on flashbacks and flash-forwards, there will be a new narrative device that is common in Bollywood movies. And since the only movie I’ve seen in that category is Slumdog Millionaire, I don’t have much insight on what it will be like.

Today ABC released two new promotional pictures for the new season, since they refuse to tease us with any video clips. The two separate, yet similar photographs make me think they will be two separate timelines for the same characters in which one will become the final by the last episode.   I entitle them, “The LOST Suppers”.

In this parody of The Last Supper, Sayid assumes the role of Judas the betrayer, Jack is the doubting Thomas, and Esau (in the form of John Locke) symbolizes Jesus. Is this to say that Esau is actually the good guy? Is he there to lead the inhabitants of out the wilderness island like Moses led the Israelites of their “lostness”? Was Jacob the true deceiver?

I want to confirm another major prediction about LOST. All I ask is that you give me credit for being the first to discover this once it becomes official in a few months. Promise you won’t forget it was me:
Season 1- September 2004 = real life 2004-2005
Season 2- October 2004 = real life 2005-2006
Season 3- November 2004 = real life 2006-2007
Season 4- December 2004 = real life 2007-2008
Season 5- January 2005/ “Three Years Later” (January 2008) = real life 2009
Season 6- February 2005 = real life 2009-2010

Notice that the furthest we have seen into the future on a flash forward on the show so far is 2008. In May when the series ends, in real life it will be 2010. That means that the years of 2009 and 2010 will not be accounted for (according to the “one season of the show equals one month for the people on the island” rule) unless they started flash forwarding to 2009 and 2010. My prediction is that in the finale of Season 6, the words “2010: present day” will flash on the screen. Something very important happens in 2009 and 2010. You heard it from me, people.