Here’s something to ponder for the day:
Before you question someone’s attitude, first question your own attitude.
If we did this, I think we’d surprised by what we find…
Reflection On Attitude
June 23rd, 2009Relationships. Rinse and Repeat.
June 22nd, 2009Relationships have been on my mind lately — partly due to my experiences over the past few months – trying to adapt to my new environment as part student/part adult professional/part New York City dweller (more on that later) – and also partly due to a very deep and ongoing Summer sermon series at Forefront called Ancestry, ‘exploring our past and shaping our future’.
Over the past couple of weeks my friend, Brian Moll, who’s the lead pastor at FF, has started this series by delving into intimacy and relationships (among other topics) pulling context from the Old Testament and relating to and incorporating teachings from the New Testament.
While a lot of profound of thoughts have been presented and I’d encourage you to head over to the church’s website and checkout the vod/podcasts, I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirly around my head in regards to my own relational condition.
The one thought that keeps coming up but that I keep fighting is that I don’t have this thing (meaning relationships) figured out and never will. Deep down, there is a part of me that wants to master friendship and perfect the art form of relationships and I see this as a black and white situation rather than in shades of gray that it really is. At the end of the day I’m yet a novice in the world of friendships and relationships, continually learning and honing.
I’m at a place where I’m having to (painfully) admit this to myself.
You may wonder why I’m sharing this with you. Often times, I think all of us, either in practicality or in our spirituality, at one time or another think we’ve mastered a skill or honed an ability to the point and we forget to take care of it and keep it tuned.
I’ve come a long way from my early college days – six years ago – of being jokingly called an ‘anti-social butterfly’ but just because I’ve made great leaps and bounds (in my opinion) shouldn’t mean that I should want to accept the status quo and say that there aren’t areas of my social fiber I wouldn’t like to change.
I believe that while we can never master the friendships or relationships in our life it doesn’t mean we should stop trying. Not everything will work to your or my advantage but the human condition provide an infinite opportunity for improving one’s personal and relational life. This is something I’ve realized I need to take advantage more of in my own life.
Free* College Text Books
June 22nd, 2009As I mentioned on Saturday I was cleaning my room and I am now starting to get a rid of a lot of stuff that I no longer have use for. I have a lot of text books from my past college years that I don’t need (or want anymore). A lot of these books cover more of the basic learning and overall theory on the topics and are not that perfect for reference.
Take a look over the list below and shoot me an email or post in the comments below if you’re interested! A lot of these books would be good for teaching someone who needs to learn the basics!
I’ll have more books when I go home and clean my room at parent’s house in July – so stay tuned!
- Web Security for Network and System Administrators – 5 Discs (Red Hat Linux 5.0)
- Murach’s ASP.NET – web programming with VB.NET
- Access 2002 – Complete Concepts and Techniques
- Introduction to Java Programming (covers Java 1.5)
- basic theory; old concepts but probably still good for a beginner - Concepts of Database Management
- Programming in Visual Basic .NET – 1 disc, which I believe is VB.NET
- Flash MX – Graphics, Animation & Interactivity – with learning CD
- Creating Web Pages with HTML and Dynamic HTML – great learning guide
- Arguing Through Literature – A Thematic Anthology and Guide to Academic Writing
- World History – Volume II – Since 11550: The Age of Global Integration
* I’ll be offering these for free – so grab them while they’re hot! I’ll be in Indiana in July if you want to grab them from me then – let me know ahead of time!
Sifting Through Memories
June 20th, 2009Today was Spring Cleaning + Day for me (I still have a couple of days to go!). I made a commitment at the beginning of this year to downsize my possessions (or at least filter the clutter) in my life. Moving for the 3rd time in almost as many years last October I realized that I had accumulated a lot of stuff that I don’t need. Coupled with the fact that my parents are ‘itching’ for me to move the last of my stuff from our home in Indiana I figured needed to create some room!
As I was going through everything I uncovered a lot of lost relics that brought up memories of the past four years and beyond. As I was deciding what to do with the stuff (whether to throw, keep, or donate) I was just struck with an odd sense of placing values on my memories and deciding which items to keep and which ones to throw. I was very quick to think of throwing away photos and objects that reminded me of the less than pleasant periods of my life.
I’m a very sentimental person and am a strong believer in remembering the entire past because of the lessons learned from the good and bad situations. However, today I was caught with the thought how much weight we place on our memories and how given life’s roller coaster mentality we should never completely let go of the past, lest we choose to not forge a different and hopefully better future.
Never deliberately and quickly choose to ignore (or forget) the not so pleasant memories of your past because, if my life is any indication of yours, the greatest moments of my life have been built upon on the weakest moments on which I chose to forge a better future.
Friday Night Movies – Conan in Late Night
June 5th, 2009Conan O’Brien made this return to late night this week and is now at the helm of the Tonight Show Succeeding Jay Leno in the premiere late night television spot.
In today’s Friday Night Movie – Conan brings us a commentary on the state of media today. (Yes, it’s a commercial, but Conan makes everything funny!)
The Ability to Admit the Things You Don’t know
May 21st, 2009“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, I don’t know.” ~Mark Twain
A friend of mine posted this on his facebook profile earlier today and it really struck me as a superb quote. I later found this ‘interesting’ commentary on the internet.
How do you think this applies to social networking immersed lives? Do we always answer even when we don’t know what to say or don’t want to say anything?
What do you guys think?
Midwest Things I took for granted
March 16th, 2009I’ve lived in New York City for awhile now and there are things that I love to reminisce about and long for that I simply took for granted when I lived back home in Indiana.
• Wal-Mart: say what you want about their labor practices and everything else but there will always be a place in my heart for the wonderful one-stop mega (and cheap) store that is Wal-Mart.
• Sonic Breakfast Burritos: Even though I only ate a few in my lifetime in the midwest I miss them greatly as I watch commercials on TV
• Chick-Fil-A: Yeah, I’m sorry but the one at NYU just doesn’t cut it for me; yeah, I know, I haven’t been, although they don’t screen for student IDs
• Arby’s: there used to be one in the City but, alas, no more horsey sauce for New Yorkers.
• All-You-Can-Eat (Chinese) Buffets: There was one in every town and I miss the variety.
• Free Drink Refills: It’s a blessed treat when you find a restaurant with free refills in the City.
What do you miss from your home-town area that you don’t have where you live now?
QUOTE: On Theory and Reality
December 21st, 2008In theory, practice and theory are the same.
In practice they aren’t.
Yogi Berra
‘Politically Correct’ Holiday Greetings
December 20th, 2008
Editor’s Note: Below is an edited version of a story I wrote in 2007 – I don’t intend to edit or rewrite this particular piece again but hope to reference back to it as the years pass by. Changes made include grammar, contextual, intent, and situational edits. The original Politically Correct Holiday greetings post can be referenced here.
In today’s society, everything seems to be too politically correct (PC) – especially when it comes to contentious issues, such as ‘religious’ holidays, especially those in December. Please use Bogopolis.com’s guide below to wish a person a ‘PC’ Christmas.
Happy Winter Solstice
This greeting allows a person to be non-descript (and non-committal) in their season greeting. Alternatives to this may include, Happy Winter Festival Season or Happy Wintertime. The latter allows you to be as generic as possible and not offend somebody who might take offense to Wiccan (read: religious) connotations of the first two.
Happy [insert religious holiday here]
Many will use other religious holidays to reference the Christmas holiday, thus making the situation in of itself politically incorrect. These holiday greetings could include: Happy Hannukah, Happy Eid ul-Adha, and Merry Kwanzaa. While respectful in their own rights – when combined with Christmas these greetings may come off as politically incorrect and cause tension if a person wants to separate holidays and traditions. (It’s probably best to keep the greetings separate and find a better way to say what you want to say.)
Happy Boxing Day
First off, Boxing day is an England tradition. Second, does anybody really care what Boxing Day is? That’s what I thought…
Happy Yuletide Season with wishes of warmth and joy
Seriously, that is way too long and a little not with the times. Others that don’t correctly fit, include: Happy New Years (skip the week and season altogether), Happy National Purchasing Season, Happy Saturnalia Day, and Happy (Baby) Jesus Day. (Actually, the last one is ‘the same’ as Christmas but may be less offensive to to those who wish to depolarize Christmas as a religious holiday.)
Happy Holidays
This seems to be the most popular choice of those, in America, who the Mexicans call Personas de Policticos Incorrecto (people who are incorrect – OK, I may have just made that up…). This greeting allows co-workers, shop owners, baristas, bloggers, journalists, commentators, sportscasters, talk show hosts, everyday people, cab drivers, bell ringers, ticket counter agents, restaurant workers, well-wishers on the streets, and you and I to say what we want to say without taking a chance to say what we really want to say regarding the holiday season. However, Bogopolis.com believes that even this term in of itself is politically incorrect. This greeting forces us to dumb down our traditions, shopping behaviors, our personal preferences, our faith – to a global level eliminating everything that our world stands for: diversity.
As an alternative, Bogopolis.com offers the following way to wish a person a Merry Christmas and still be politically correct:
Merry Christmas!
Over the centuries, Christmas has lost a lot of it’s religious meaning and become more of a secular holiday in today’s global marketplace. Yes, Christmas is a religious holiday in which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who we believe to be our savior – but the global truth is that we were not the first ones to claim a winter holiday for our religion. Christmas has become and continues to be a global holiday, which means something different to everybody. Christmas should not be recognized as a mere Christian holiday, but as a celebration of family, a time we celebrate the past year with loved ones and prepare for the new. Christmas is truly about love (and let’s not forget about receiving gifts!) and the time we have with each other.
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