no doubt in response to that, what marya said. though given the one-sided, "look at me!" nature of the web, one must allow for people's opinions to exert themselves in much the same way as their other exhibitionist tendencies.
sunday is a good day for reflection and renewal. if church isn't your thing, I recommend a nice café with the sunday times. or something more engaging, like eugene peterson.
I'm off to make eggs. happy sunday.
cogent thought at
09:40 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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saturday, june 29
reprise perhaps scalzi is on to something with his mowing life lessons. I thought of them as I did my own lawn today, but was at a serious loss for clever inferences. clearly he has a better command of the english language (and superior sense of humor), because I suddenly have real estate envy.
cogent thought at
21:07 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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on fat why do I feel like halcyon when I'm in the pool? why can't I have that buoyant feeling all day long? this is a conspiracy, I tell you.
ever have a really good day with the family? this is one of those days, and we haven't even made it to planet wings or b & n yet. best of all, the vacation just started.
somedays, life is really really good. except for the sunburn kicking in on my shoulders.
cogent thought at
18:17 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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friday, june 28
connect I've exchanged a couple of emails with nigel this past week. it's been good to catch up with him, considering how life has been for him the past 24 months or so. if you know him, or have followed any of his trials on his myriad heartwrenchingly beautiful sites, you'll understand.
but then I read today's post, and a shadow crept over my heart. nigel has a true gift, and not just his creativity; he has a flair for the dramatic, which may or may not contribute to his artistry. one might say it is an art form unto itself.
what I know of nigel is all good. we do not see eye to eye on many things; he being atheist and politically bent almost as far left as jean. what we do agree on is a mutual affection for one another. I believe I can say this without fear of correction.
and so I would ask, if you are a friend, or yet to be acquainted, do please go meet nigel. now, please, if you don't mind. and should his greatest fears be realized, more important than knowing his work, do please pray for the man. he is a good egg, and a man I dearly hope to meet someday for a pint and a game of american football or yankees-mets baseball.
keep the faith, my friend.
cogent thought at
22:14 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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watching him -- cold and stoic to the world, warmly embracing his kids -- I was taken back to a time when I could have been him. I reminisced about a job offering in southern california, at the height of the dot-com mania. "name your own price, mike," he told me. my choice of stock options and salary for two years of cranking out java code and gps databases. it was such a no-brainer.
and then we looked harder at it: eighteen hour days, kids too young to be in school, no family or friends nearby. what would become of my family as I briefly sold my soul to the Man? this morning, I came to the realization that I would have lost them all if we had chased after the almighty strike price.
I would have become the man next to me.
cogent thought at
10:06 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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then I actually viewed the ad. in the name of all that is holy, suck it up and get over it, already. or perhaps it's just me? I grieved as much as the next guy who took the towers and the manhattan skyline for granted on my regular jaunts downstate, so please don't misinterpret my frustration. it is with those who, it seems to me, have far too much time on their hands (hi, marcus) to be whining about a couple of frappacino cups triggering their cnn-induced traumas over an event that wasn't any more realistic from watching it over and over again in super slo-mo than many movies we've all seen.
again; I grieved. I have friends who watched the planes fly in from across the street. friends of relatives who didn't make it out. was as horror-stricken as you undoubtedly were. but let's not kid ourselves, kids: editing out the towers in movies to pretend they were never there doesn't help the healing process.
cogent thought at
16:29 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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tuesday, june 25
separation redux yesterday's post continued: it is my experience that people put a whole lot of stock in the perceived rightness of a cause, but usually that perception is based on the will / morals / integrity of the adherent, moreso than the cause itself. I find people tend to judge Chrstianity, for instance, both in terms of its "good" followers (mother theresa, billy graham, martin luther king, jr., smith wigglesworth) and its "bad" (jim jones, bob jones, jim & tammy bakker, constantine): more "good" reports, a better opinion.
even more often I find people judge Christianity by the sum total of their encounters with Christians. as if because someone was inconsistent in walking the walk, weak in their faith or legalistic in the application of Truth, the principles of Truth themselves are now somehow inapplicable to our lives. either the principle is true or it isn't; one's feelings of "rightness" do not determine the Truth of the principles taught.
the danger in basing your opinion of a cause / religion / movement on how good it makes you feel is that some principles worth following do not necessarily make you feel good. have you ever decided you didn't like the law of gravity, and therefore chosen to ignore it?
so it is with Christianity. Jesus said the time would come (and has, just not in america) when people would kill Christians thinking they were doing God a favor. the only reason it hasn't happened here yet (Christians being killed for their faith) is because no one has proven they can live it like Jesus taught it.
more is the pity that our faith in a cause / higher power / primum mobile rises and falls on the actions of temporal, fallible human beings. not because the respective proponents shouldn't be modelling their definition of the Way; to the contrary: I believe Christians will be held accountable to God for their (in)actions. God help me if I am the reason someone turns away from knowing Christ.
the pity is, with respect to Christianity, as kierkegaard noted: it has become so devoid of character, no one wants to kill the disciples.
cogent thought at
10:26 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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which goes to underscore asparagirl's commentary on the inability of judging a cause's nobility, in and of itself, either by its adherents or their devotion to it.
the nobility of a cause is in its principle.
overheard my co-worker paul: I think I'm going over to a firehouse and yell "Movie!"
cogent thought at
15:22 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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blast from the past in 1994 I was young, hungry, dying to work for a killer company. I found one. found out I was bright enough to make it in the industry. ended up working there a couple years, honed my skills, moved on to a company closer to home. ceo said I had an open door to return if my life circumstances allowed me to travel again. then he sold the company. made a truckload, started another company.
earlier this year I tried contacting him; wanted to meet with him (dinner, beer, whatever) to get a sense of perspective from him on the industry and my place in it. not for a handout, not for a job. alas, no response. talked today to his #2 guy, reminisced a little. naturally, I got inspired to write him again. and yet I can't articulate why I'd like to meet with him. except for what I just wrote, which wasn't altogether bad.
so the question before me: do I bother trying to make contact again?
update it's official: I was formally accepted into the creative studies distance learning program. I ship out in two weeks.
cogent thought at
16:12 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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the now woman was totally unprepared for the onslaught. she didn't know any basic facts about the organization she claimed to represent (i.e., number of members, prominent supporters), and she was given to arguing point for point with the loon. this was to her distinct disadvantage, given the loon's shrill and animated (read, grossly over the top) delivery relative to her own deadpan (read, comatose) responses.
neither was dressed as though television is a flattering medium, neither had much in the way of valuable information to contribute, and neither added an iota of intelligent dialogue. more grievous in an age where this topic is so divisive, neither did anything to engender sympathy for, much less further, their Cause. both made their organizations look foolish, their own agendas suspect.
what makes people resort to their basest nature to try and win converts? marcus is fond of saying to me (regarding this very site) that I'd attract more nudie-pic-seeking flies with honey than vinegar. perhaps it's true for praynaked.com; but it would most certainly have been true if just one of the two clowns from last night's debacle had bothered to listen to the other's argument: they might have actually noticed the common ground beneath their feet. there are what covey calls third alternatives, and both were so focused on being right they forgot to be civil, understanding, empathic listeners. the ground one can gain from being willing to shut up and listen was summarily forfeited.
as is common in these debates, the fight ended the way it started: an ugly, bloody, ear-biting stalemate. the catatonic wanted more entitlements, the loon wanted to beat the catatonic over the head. neither side was willing to give ground to gain ground, neither cared for (or about) the other's perspective. shame on them both.
and shame on us all for identifying with either side.
cogent thought at
14:35 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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tuesday, june 18
seeking wow. this guy james might be on to something. were I to devote more time to the conservative vs. liberal thought process, seeking always to find some common ground, I imagine (nay, fantasize) that this is how eloquently I would write it.
cogent thought at
12:57 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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this thing is the bomb. beyond cool to see it remember all my passwords, name/address data for online ordering, then spit it back out again for easy peasy surfing. way to be.
what's that? you say they report your purchase habits and sell them to spammers? heck, I can't find real mail in my inbox for all the unsolicited crap I already get.
cogent thought at
10:24 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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please stand by my buddy marya, God bless'er. keeps harassing me about the honesty statement, now modified in the hopes of clarifying my thought process. an essay would do it better justice, but suffice to say, I know a lot more people of the conservative persuasion than I do liberal. this ("a lot") is a non-scientific, empirical number, collected from casual and occasionally intense discussions with any number of random folks in non-metropolitan (read, upstate) new york. what it suggests to me is most people think differently at the community level about these types of things than our politicians or media, or some higher-level entity claiming to speak for us. most people I know expect very little of their government: defend the borders and deliver the mail tend to rank pretty high, and last year both earned poor marks. the how of those issues is where the logic, common sense and honesty seem to diverge between liberals and conservatives (or even democrats and republicans): the dividing line tends to be idealistic ("things 'should be' another, more enlightened way") versus pragmatic ("fix the damn leak already, can't you see I'm getting wet?!").
so when a guy like armed liberal says he expects his government to be responsible for the betterment of society and he believes in personal accountability by walking softly and carrying a big stick (of sorts), it resonates with me as true. maybe my sense of honesty is more ... pollyanna ... than most: but I believe there is a responsibility for government to make society better than it found it, though not to be ultimately responsible for social improvement.
which is why I also believe in the right to bear arms: individuals have a right to be, well, individual. but when your individuality infringes on mine, I can't stand around and wait for the government to intervene, tell me to take an anger management class, and feel your pain. I don't want to take action, because you should know better than to project your individuality onto mine, but I want my right to protect my rights (and yours) not to be infringed upon, either by the same government who sanctioned them, or the guy with road rage trying to force me off the nearest embankment. believing the government should see us all suceed is a truly noble cause, and I applaud the ones doing something to achieve it. but until you pull it off, I'll thank you to please keep your hands off my glock, and to respect why it's on my hip.
cogent thought at
12:18 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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face one upon finding mango pudding likes bruce cockburn: elation. upon finding the cockburn tune mango taped is his least favorite of the compilation: utterly dejected.
cogent thought at
12:34 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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me talk pretty one day there is nothing like reading lance, ernie, scalzi and the mango pudding blues boy to either inspire a budding blogger or cause him to cast himself headlong into the throes of an inferiority complex. naturally, I chose the latter of the two. couple this with an (unsolicited) analysis of my site from a friend (whose own url I am prepared to threaten to publish as blackmail) who suggests that my fondness for angst-indulgent posts is exactly what causes people like him to be turned off by organized religion at large, or my own brand of Jesus freakdom in particular.
whatever. all I know is, I have blog envy.
it's clear (to me, at any rate) I can write a robust enough essay; what is not so well defined is my ability to find a voice that does not leave the reader with a severe case of the drools. not that I dislike the ben stein model, thank you very much.
cogent thought at
15:59 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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review redux just got back from seeing attack of the clones a second time; for some reason, it didn't suck nearly as bad this viewing. I only laughed or rolled my eyes twice: when anakin told padme she was in his "very soul", tormenting him; and when yoda did the bruce lee move before pulling out his light sabre and showing count dooku that old muppets on crack can still learn new tricks. still, lucas delivered what for him must be a technological wet dream; pity the story didn't come before the technological wizardry.
cogent thought at
13:31 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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spirit friday I met another member of jim's band of twelve; he was in boston on vacation from alaska, close enough to attend a church service, lucked out that king's x was in town. double bonus. the bonus for me was meeting another young man of God who was touched by jim's life. neat to see too how God has a sense of ironic humor: joel and his wife and I hit it off immediately, though we did not previously know one another -- despite having close relationships with about a dozen of the same people. brett triggered the thought in my mind that jim was Jesus to a lot of people; meeting him last year, and joel this weekend, just brings that fact home for me. not sure what was more amazing: hitting it off so quickly amidst our mutual fandom of the 77's and kx, or the fact that I didn't choke up once talking to others who were as close to jim as I was.
cogent thought at
14:47 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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that morning of surgery, and the night before, was stressful. the night before because of all the stress of preparing to be out of work for a month; the 'morning of' because I was scared to death. scared of the unknown. scared of the change. the finality of it. and the uncertainty. "what if it doesn't work? what if the doctor from 1991 is right, and there's really only a 50-50 chance of success?"
we got to pre-op late (natch), rapidly got me into a room and undressed, where they proceeded to dope me up, then shave my entire left side from ribcage to toes. the drugs were so good, I didn't care a whit about the large male nurse riding roughshod over my nether regions with an electric razor. he seemed unfazed by the head nurse, stressed out because my surgeon wanted to get underway. "it's gotta be done right," he kept saying. had I been lucid, I would have cracked jokes with him. I remember having surgery in the spring of 1982, shortly after ronald reagan was shot. just before going under, the surgeon asked if I had any questions. "I hope you're all republicans," I quoted. I was so glib.
my wife, God bless her, was a rock. even when the nun prayed for me on the way in, and she had to stay behind, she didn't for a moment betray the fear and panic she held; I only heard about her crying in her eggs afterward. when I arrived in the o.r., the doctor was not put out, but in fact smiling and jovial. there were measurements and notes all over my x-rays, and a team of masked folks ready to get to work. I asked if I could have the femur bone when he was done with it, at which point he laughed and patted me on the head. muttering something about "medical waste", he had me quickly put under. a wonder they don't make you count backwards from 100 anymore.
the typically 90-minute procedure lasted over three times longer, and when he emerged, tigges told my wife and parents that mine was especially tough. I didn't care, and almost welcomed the pain from the incisions -- hell, even the catheter -- as a relief from the agony of the bone on bone grating of my femur and acetabular. even without the morphine the following six days, I would have been happy.
a week after the surgery, I walked the length of the mall on a pair of crutches. the christmas prior I could not walk five minutes without sitting down to rest and relieve the pain. four years later and pain free. free of the mental crutches as well. finally, even my subconcious knew: I was whole.
cogent thought at
21:29 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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after action of the four shows I've seen to date, king's x delivered their best ever friday night. two hours of solid rock and roll. some serious jamming. a pumped up crowd. a band wanting to play "until they kick us out", and delivering on that promise. they reached back in time, covered each album since their inception, and prominently featured several from their latest release. doug no longer looks like a tormented soul. though never in question, ty (guitar), doug (bass) and jerry's (drums) genuine love for one another was evident all night long. at the beginning of the encore, doug sat at the drums and rippled off some solid percussion, then broke into a quick little jam, singing, "I'm better than jer--ry". kx's love for their faithful following was clear as well: though the crowd was thin, the band was gracious and effusive in its praise -- this was, after all, the second stop of the tour. would that more had been there to enjoy a truly gifted and giving band. life was good friday.
cogent thought at
09:41 courtesy of Michael Ackerbauer [
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