My Inner Author

As 2009 draws to a close and 2010 prepares for its grand opening, there are so many issues which could draw debate, discussion and attention. But 01/01/10 will be the biggest day for college football in the state of Florida perhaps in history, as two of the most revered, loved and respected careers will come to end; and one successful career will hit the pause button. You see, Bobby Bowden and Tim Tebow will end their respective runs on New Year's Day 2010. What else can be said about Bobby Bowden that hasn't really been discussed already. He has been hailed as a Saint by some, respected as a coach, a mentor, and sometimes as a father figure to thousands of young men over his 44 years as a head coach. He was innovative, colorful (but never profane), and perhaps most of all, sincere. Ironically, the events which stand out most to me as a FSU fan and Coach Bowden has nothing to do with the game played on the field. Rather it has to do with how he taught those young men about thin...

Well, the news is drawing me towards writing on a different topic, but I have seen a few recent efforts at getting people to share more info about themselves over the past few weeks. The 100 question interviews, the polls and such are okay, but I wanted to try a different concept. Nothing too detailed or time consuming. So, I came up with the idea to list the 10 Guys I Would Most Like To Hang Out With For A Day. I stayed away from listing any ladies, no distractions here. Just 10 dudes from all different areas whom I think would be fun, interesting, educational, and maybe all of the them. Each one holds some area of interest to me, and I left some off the list just because I had to whittle it to 10. And of course since I cannot bring people back from the dead, they have to be living. So, I will list mine. Perhaps someone else will take up the idea and list theirs. Just a quick bit of mostly meaningless wondering. Perfect for the holiday season. 1) Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs. Besides...

As I listen to people talk on the news, in the media, online and in person about health care one thing has become abundantly clear: Far too many Americans have forgotten what it is to BE an American, they now resemble something like a couch potato watching reality TV every day. They look to Oprah and the government to just fix the problem, preferably before the next commercial break and certainly before tomorrow’s episode. And sadly, many of them actually believe they can do it. Are Oprah’s guests today Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter? Shute, you would think Barrack Obama is wielding a magic wand the way so many people think he can magically solve not only America’s woes, but all the world’s problems. So many Americans want things wrapped up all nice and neat, and quickly. It seems "closure" is now the goal, not a dogged determination to find the best solutions to the problems of the world today. Too many people lack the motivation to educate themselves on the issue or lack...

Okay, here is a good topic to discuss, and well outside my usual zone: Black Friday. Most Americans know this as the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the biggest shopping day of the year. It got its name from the idea that most stores became profitable for the year with their huge volume of sales that day (and everyday thereafter was gravy). You know the deal: Thanksgiving Day these "top secret" (yes, that is sarcasm) deals are revealed to the world, and dedicated shoppers can stage their pre-dawn war plans to obliterate Christmas shopping lists and drop a thermonuclear bomb on the family credit card debt. Where as once the stores opened at 7am, the frenzy now begins at 4am (maybe earlier in some cases). Well, I have an idea to offer the retail world: "Change" is a nice buzzword these days, so maybe you can get with the program; change the rules for Black Friday. I cannot count the number of horror stories of rude behavior, of people running over others, or knocking p...

Okay, like so many in Bulldog Nation, I share the frustration of the 2009 football season to date. Our beloved Dawgs look more undisciplined than a band of fresh Army recruits on the first day of basic training, they give the football away so much the United Way has given them the donor of the year award already and the defense is so friendly to the opposition (and so averse to takeaways) Amnesty International and the United Nations have nominated them for pacifists of the year. All of that said, I think all the naysayers screaming to fire Martinez, fire Bobo and even some who have questioned Mark Richt’s leadership need to sit down, take a deep breath and have some patience. Coach Richt, if he were listening out there, would likely quote the old saying, "if you listen to the fans, soon you'll be sitting up there with them." I don’t think Mark reached the highest levels of the football coaching profession by listening to sports talk radio, making crucial decisions by pol...

This is still not finalized I think.... As my friends know, I am a huge fan of the science fiction genre. For me it all began with Star Trek, despite William Shatner’s overly dramatic Captain Kirk. By the time Star Wars debuted in 1978, I had been hooked. To me the real power of Science Fiction is the ability of the writer to craft his or her story in whatever “world” or “universe” they want. Not all fiction writers can take advantage of such a powerful tool. Your average legal drama today requires a setting in today’s society (or a well documented past one) where there are certain rules in place. For example, you can’t have a story today where you can probe the suspect’s memories for the truth with a machine. You can’t have a chase scene that spans a continent. You have to use a judge, a jury, and follow the norms of today. In SciFi, the author can have all sorts of possibilities. Want a chase scene across galaxies? Sure. Want a truly invisible stalker? Alright. Time Travel? Okay. But...

This will not be one of my usual blogs. I just had a thought about something and decided to jot it down quickly before it got washed away by an afternoon of college football. Why are we Conservative, Tea Party types so upset over the Health Care debate and runaway spending? There are many reasons, but here is one very large one to consider. Why are people inside Washington so clueless? Do you know George Bush (41) had no idea about bar code scanners in checkout lines at grocery and other retail stores? He had absolutely no idea such a thing existed. Do you think Bill Clinton ever had to run out at 9pm to get Chelsea some cold medicine because they had run out of Nyquil? Has Nancy Pelosi ever had to check a bag through when she has flown on an airplane? When was the last time "W" went to the grocery store and saw the prices of food? Do you really think Harry Reid pumps his own gas? When was the last time Barrack Obama actually bought a car at a dealership? Think about nearly a...

Recently, I had the interesting experience of watching the political debates of the day mushroom into epic verbal battles here on the pages of Facebook. I know for many, this is why they stay far away from the political discussions altogether. Very few desire confrontation in general, and certainly not over something like Health Care Reform, the Nobel Peace Prize or government spending. I don’t welcome a war of words. However, I am not willing to sit on the sidelines and allow others to censor my thoughts or my voice. Somewhere there is a happy medium. This past week, I had a “Facebook friend” who decided to throw down over the role of government. Facebook friend? We attended the same high school, where we were never really friends, but one of my other friends knew them, so I accepted their Facebook request when they invited. I guess I thought I might expand my circle. I don’t know. Well, I did learn from this: I will never accept any future invites for people I did not “friend" w...

Well, I have been waiting for the right motivation to pen another socially relevant blog, but there haven’t been any major political debates to ignite the passion within. So, how can I still be interesting? What sensational or taboo topic could I come up with to stir the pot? I know a topic sure to be quite thought provoking and emotional: the subject of sex. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big time supporter and proponent of sex. Honestly, I think one of the failings of many churches, indeed even many families, is the “taboo” of talking openly about sex. There are so many topics and viewpoints on sex this could turn into a series of blogs. But, first I will begin by writing about the stigma the topic gets today from so many in the religious community and how many academics and educators are ruining our society (with their treatment of sex) as well. There needs to be balance on the topic given its elevated importance in our culture, and much like the political arena today, it is a topic...

Well, I have quite enjoyed poking fun at the football team in Hogtown this week. I know they are quite poised for what should be a repeat National Title and a potential first perfect season ever. However, being a Gator hater, I also have high hopes things will go awry and since they are starting with such high expectations, there is no where for them to go, but down. And I pray one of my teams can be the one to deliver the dagger to the heart of Gator fans the world over. So, I will recap and add a few extra nuggets before turning my full attention back to the week to week battles in College Football (I will try and conjure up some new material when my sacred Dawgs face the Drunken Horde of orange and blue in Jacksonville on Halloween). Much has been said, made, revered, cherished and regurgitated about Tim Tebow over the past 3 years. Before I go further, let me say LOUDLY, I like Tim, the person. My issues have been strictly with the Gator fans, the media, and the unholy hype surroun...

Okay, I had another idea for some "light" writing and decided I would take advantage of the sentiment. No hard issues of the day, no life altering epiphanies, just one of thousands of random thoughts that crossed my brain yesterday. Television has played a huge role in our society and certainly boomed in my lifetime. From a black and white picture with 3 channels, to full color, high definition pictures on a thousand channels. It is almost a mirror of our society, from the small minded, limited views of our world in the 1960s, to the full and rich experience of our global world today; both good and bad. In all the hours of watching TV there have been some major events which certainly will stay with me forever. Some I vividly remember, others not at all. Neil Armstrong walking on the moon doesn't count for me, I was not even 2. But I do remember seeing the news of the hostages being taken in Iran, seeing Reagan get shot, watching my beloved Phillies win the 1980 World ...

Okay, I have been (accurately) accused of providing far too much social commentary lately, and while those issues remain very important to me, I do grow tired of the battles from time to time and wanted to take a step away. So, when wondering what a socially irrelevant topic might be, I thought...me. Just a brief FAQ of my own. Since I will likely be the only reader anyhow probably, I get to choose the questions... 1) What do you really do? I work in I.T. (Information Technology, or computers for short). I presently work as a Linux Systems Administrator, Storage Area Network Administrator, and have been a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in the past. Okay, thanks, now in English please? I work on enterprise class servers (big computers) which run Linux, an open source operating system which is much more secure than Windows. (The normal non-IT person translation: I work on blah blah blah computers blah blah blah.) A storage area network is a huge collection of hard drives cl...

What is it about politics? To many, the mere mention of it sends most people into a fight or flight response. Too many people either run from the entire concept of politics or get so sucked in their objectivity and independence go with them. The old time notions of discussion and debate are nearly gone from our country. Now it is all about control, spin, approval ratings and the elimination the opposing view. There are times when the issues of the day are as interesting as a 6-hour documentary on grooming habits of the Mediterranean fruit fly. Given all that, I can almost understand the apathy towards politics which so many people today display. But, that apathy needs to be transformed into action. Our nation is at a crossroads. Not taking a stand or making a choice is still making a choice. It just means the choices will be made by someone else. So, in the interest of trying to stir up some good old fashioned discussion and debate, I decided to lay out some of the most fundamental pri...

Where does the soul reside in people? Yesterday at lunch, my friend Jeff and I had one of our more interesting discussions. He recounted to me a chapter from a book he had just finished reading about cadavers called Stiff. Apparently there was a section of the book which told of researchers trying to determine the weight of a human soul, weighing people before they died and again after they died, in an effort to see if they could determine the weight of a human soul. Rather than carry the discussion in the direction of how these must be government researchers, since they were obviously wasting large sums of money on a fruitless effort, he asked me the question: Where do you think the soul is? Well, I am sure the average American on the street might be polled and the results would indicate a strong showing for the heart being the leading candidate (especially among Twilight fans), but I chose to ponder Jeff’s question for a few moments before I responded. My answer was rather concise, a...

Well, after my last very lengthy and political note/blog, I still had several things I had been writing. However, I thought I might depart from the political or spiritual realm for a moment, and compile a list of pet peeves, and invite others to add their own. A kind of therapy, by venting. This list is by no means complete, I am quite certain others will add some that I will go, DUH! I should have thought of that. But, the idea is to let everyone vent briefly. With the pending Monday, I am sure lots of people will want to add to the list. So, as a departure from the norm, here is my list. They are in no particular order. 1) People who insist on bringing infants to movies. As a slight variation on the same peeve, people who bring small children to movies that are wholly inappropriate for kids. (Yes I have seen people take 4-year olds to see R-rated films.) Talk about unmitigated selfishness. Hire a freaking sitter! 2) Drivers who will blow past you on the left lane, only to slow down ...

Well, I have been debating what to write about after taking the past month off, something personal, something funny, something political? I went back and forth for several days, kind of working on all 3 ideas at the same time. I would simply see which one allowed itself to be completed first. And the winner is, my shout out on why Congress and Barrack Obama need to stay the hell away from our health care system. Is our current health care system perfect? Nope. Is it the best in the world? Yep. Can it be improved? Sure. Can the government design and run a better health care system? Only if you think we have an overpopulation problem and we need to be killing off a few thousand people a day. What is the real problem with health care? Well, the most talked about problem on the Network news is the millions of people out there without insurance. So, how to fix the problem? If you vote Democratic, apparently the solution is to throw out our current system, and let the government run things, ...

Readers of my notes may start to think I have nothing but criticism to share about Christians and churches, and my intent when I started to put this blog series together was to provide a voice of reason and speak of my faith. I wanted the last blog to focus on the real positives in Christian churches and the Christian Faith. My past few blogs have dealt, hopefully in a constructive and light-hearted way (for the most part), with the not-so-positive issues I see the Christian faith facing. I wanted to illustrate to anyone reading them, there are MANY, MANY more sane, levelheaded people with a loving, caring heart and soul who follow the Christian faith. We do not want to see our beliefs and faith hijacked in the mainstream of society by the modern day Pharisees (the Holier Than Thou crowd), the Prosperity snake oil salesmen, or the casual country club Christian crowd. There are millions upon millions of us who simply want to share our faith, make the world a better place, and love our w...