coffee-rock-thought

a breather

2011-02-18T18:54:00.000-05:00

It's been a nice couple of months. This blog took root some time last year when I thought I was having a "crisis of faith" and thus I set out on a "journey of rediscovery." What I actually accomplished was lousy and only amounted to me digging a hole that would never have the floor I hoped for in site.

Truth be told, the best thing to happen to my spiritual / faith life has been to stop taking it so seriously. So this blog will go on hiatus and I'll continue to have fun over at the Tumblr (of the same name which is set to pull from this blogger site) and simply enjoy life. Santa Claus doesn't care if I believe in him and he won't give me more or less presents either way.

Folks would rather me be cheerful here and so would I!

So, enjoy more coffee, turn up the rock, continue to think, but loosen up Jonny.....

A Call To Reality and a Benediction, "Go in Pieces"

2010-12-02T16:27:00.001-05:00

by Pádraig Ó Tuama, from the Insurrection Pub Tour:

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

In the name of goodness and love and broken community.

In the name of meaning and feeling and I hope you don’t screw me…

In the name of sadness, regret, and holy obsession, the holy name of anger, the spirit of aggression…

In the name of beauty and beaten and broken down daily.

In the name of seeing our creeds and believing in maybe, we gather here, a table of strangers, and speak of our hopeland and talk of our danger…

In the name of Mary and Jesus and the mostly silent Joseph.

In the name of speaking to ourselves, saying this is more than I can cope with…

In the name of goodness and kindness and intentionality. In the name of harbor and shelter and family.

The task has ended. Go in pieces.

Our faith has been rear-ended, certainty amended,

and something might be mended that we didn’t know was torn.

And we are fire, bright, burning fire,

turning from the places from which we fell,

emptying ourselves into the hell in which we’ll find

our loving and beloved brother,

mother, sister, father, friend.

And so friends, the task has ended.

Go in pieces

to see and feel your world.

Pluralism

2010-07-23T00:22:00.000-04:00

"...many of us find the exclusivistic claims of the Christian tradition impossible to accept. This is so for both commonsense reasons and Christian theological reasons. Does it make sense that the creator of the whole universe would be known in only one religious tradition, which (fortunately) just happens to be our own?"

"Moreover, such a claim is difficult to reconcile with the centrality of grace in the Christian tradition. If one must be a Christian to be in right relationship with God, then there is a requirement. By definition, then, even though we may use the language of grace, we are no longer talking about grace."---Marcus Borg, Learning to Read the Bible Again for the First Time

---------------
This gets at weighty questions I've had for some time but couldn't make sense of with the common theology. To this point, I'd always considered myself "blessed" to have been brought up within the Christian church in America, but the question lingered over the "misfortune" of folks who grow up in places like Iran or North Korea. Or even folks here who had horrible experiences early on that lead them far from the Christian faith.

The typical answers range from "God works in mysterious ways" to a very misunderstood notion of "predestination"---neither makes any sense at this time. Of course, I'd also hear something to the effect of "well, there are Christians over there and people have come to know Christ regardless of their situation because God can do anything" .....or maybe I'd hear myself whispering reminders of all the ways God has been with me throughout the years despite my tough times and brought me this far.

Yes, God as I believe Him to be, can do anything. But He will not do anything. Big big big big difference.

So how do I possibly deal with these issues? Especially in light of the age that we're in now?
If pluralism exists, it is dishonest. Most of us (the sane ones) don't go around vomiting John 14:6 on people about Jesus. I'd get fired from my job, punched in the mouth by some, and mostly ignored as a lunatic by the rest. And rightfully so.
(We'll save persecution for another post.)

We "respectfully" accept freedom of religion but barely "tolerate" other religions. 9/11 certainly didn't help anything either.

This is very hard to think through and deal with.
Some will answer by quoting Luke 12:51--"Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division."

I would suggest that this same verse has been used by white supremacists and the hate-filled group associated this that awful picture above. Obviously that segment of our society is disgusting and that is a horrific use of scripture to validate their desire for means of power.

So what makes us so confident in our interpretation and usage?

I'm aware that there are a lot of others thinkers, (Newbigin has some stuff I can't wait to read), who've weighed in on this and I'm excited to see what more I can scratch at.

Interesting movement here: http://www.embracingourdifferences.org/donate.html

building bricks to build with

2010-07-20T15:56:00.001-04:00

‎

"When people tell us to be quiet and accept the conventional wisdom of the past, many of us groan like the Hebrews when they were forced to produce bricks without straws."--Brian McLaren, A New Kind Of Christianity

Recently, my buddy Rob let me borrow his copy of the latest book by Brian McLaren, "A New Kind Of Christianity." For the past year or so before I decided to dig deeper into all of this, I had been doing a lot of back and forth about who I should or shouldn't read. I had big meaty questions that seemed to rock whatever speck of faith I had to the core. I would read reviews of the books by some of the "new atheists" that absolutely terrified me. Why? Because they were attempting to put answers to those big questions and they had answers that I was afraid of hearing because they might make too much sense.

While I'm still not ready to dive into Hitchins or Dawkins, it has been interesting to learn more about some people who are dealing with questions openly and honestly but in more of a positive light. But everywhere I looked it seemed that the evangelical group that I put all my trust in were pointing fingers at this other group and warning the world against these "false prophets."

The "Emergent Church"...Brian McLaren seems to be the grand old uncle of the group infecting the minds of young folks like me. So when Rob gave me the book I felt a bit sinister. Like I was hiding something dirty...which is absolutely ridiculous. The other camp calls him a heretic but either I'm not reading things correctly or I'm evolving into a heretic myself. The things he's talking about are making a lot of sense. But I'm trying to come at all of the new information in a steadied and studious fashion. One mistake I always made in my old version of faith was getting overly excited and jumping right on boards with things that I look back at now with embarrassment.

"Post Modern"--- the emergents are the ones talking the most about this phase in cultural history. And they're also the ones making the most sense of it because it seems they've taken the time to actually understand where a lot of folks like myself are coming from. We've shoved ourselves through an evangelical church system that has left me with nothing to stand on...except the rock I cling to as a base which is the existence of a God that created me, and a man that claimed to be his son and taught things that I continue to have a hard time actually absorbing because the kind of people he was calling us to be is a lot more intense than the American Evangelical religious system desires/requires. There's always been talk of a "transforming" experience that happens when you "accept Christ" but either I'm in the thick of that transformation or it's never happened.

-----
Maybe it's all been me trying to make those bricks without straw. I know how I got here, but I'm unsure why I'm still here. And that's a big piece of the puzzle that needs to be placed.

So it's out of the bag. I'm learning about / interested in the emerging / emergent church and a lot of it is exciting. As much as it's not a good option for me to have faith out of fear, it's not a good option to stay away from a group based on what other people say it is or isn't. Besides, who am I to have more faith in anyway? Faith in myself that I will lose my faith? Faith in other people that they will lead me astray or teach me correctly?

Nope. I know what I cling to and that's all i need right now to stand on.

a few more questions...

2010-07-14T10:50:00.000-04:00

I'm sure this will be the first of many ongoing posts with the
appropriate title of "a few more questions," but here we are.

So I've realized that the Christianity that I've come to know is strictly from a blend of protestant perspectives, of which I really know nothing. I know the big names of the Reformation, but I couldn't lay out what big ideas any of them had (save for Calvin and predestination, which makes no sense) and it's good for me to look into that as I work my way backwards towards Jesus and my understanding of the bible.

The other 2 big questions I need to work through are the bible, translations, and how we came to what is known as the canon. Along with that thread are the base literal vs interpretive understandings, the "inerrancy" of the scriptures, and divine inspiration aspects and how those affect any given view of the text.

I think these may be good starting points. I must acknowledge that I come to the bible not with new eyes and a clean slate. I bring a bias and lens both personal (cultural) and theological (what I've been taught thus far). I'm attempting to shed as much of the bias as I can but I think that a great starting point is to understand a little bit more about the movements that have brought me here.

Moving on.........

Definitions

2010-07-12T23:23:00.000-04:00

As I'm setting out to the open sea of my mind, I figure it'd be good to think about where I'm at and what I'd like to accomplish, at least to being with. I may not know the ultimate destination, but the horizon in front of me is the unspoken hope that the destination will arrive someday.

I hope it goes without saying - as much as this is an online journal rather than a true blog, I want to encourage anybody to respond to my journey and add to it....otherwise I'm alone at sea and endlessly chasing the white whale.

I'm going at this not in an attempt to disprove my previous notions and "beliefs" but in an effort to get outside the American Christian box that I've found myself, bound by limited understandings of varied interpretations of scripture a mixed set of theological traditions that work with and contradict each other at every other turn.

Ok, so I need to lay out some of the basic bigger questions not so much as a framework but as a starting point. Also, not with the intention of finding a conclusion, but to enjoy the spirit of moving beyond a simple answer.

Who am I?

Who is God?

Who am I in light of my understanding of who God is?

Who was Jesus?

Who is Jesus?

Who am I in light of my understanding of who Jesus was/is and what He has accomplished?

What is a Christian?
Who am I in light of that definition?

It's going to be important to remember these questions and not be tempted to answer them simply. I'm convinced from my own experience that my misunderstanding of basic concepts has more to do with my own laziness and complacency to not think more deeply than it is something that just doesn't make sense.

Of course, these are simply the main / big picture questions that lead to smaller and smaller questions. And I know that. I'll be left with choices of what to believe along the way, but the paths I choose will not determine the destination, merely the route. I'm putting my full faith in a Creator that designed me with a relentless desire to know more about myself and the world around me and in that pursuit I will be given new understandings to help spur me on.

It's always easier and more comforting to take another persons answer to these types of questions and sub questions, especially when those answers are coupled with a strong stance on their absolute understanding of a text and what my questioning in light of that teaching has to say about the quality of my faith. This is one of those boxes of religion I'm fighting to dismantle.

I like to think I've moved beyond the anger and resentment that arises out of that and am at a new place where I can have a positive approach and a confidence that I'm not defined by my questions but by how I approach and contextualize the layers of my understanding through time.

New Beginnings

2010-07-06T23:15:00.001-04:00

Hello again!

I began this blog with the intention of making it a public journal of things that I like...coffee, rock and roll, and a general smattering thoughts about life, the world, faith, and other mind junk.

As I've thought more about what this space ought to be I decided it'd be appropriate for me to split my blog in two. This space will remain a more personal, off the record/cuff, ranting, raving land where I can just get stuff out. Make a point, get lost in thought, and hopefully...here's the key, get some great feedback on the thoughts that deserve feedback. The other, newer, fresher space will be for all things coffee and business / sales. I'm not quite ready to launch that yet, but all in due time. It's the professional space after all, so I need to make it look professional!

I'd like for most of my posts here to be honest with a center target of truth, whatever that may be, mostly born of a post-everything mindset and a desire to learn more about who I am, where I came from, and why I believe what I do. This is my personal journey and I'm having fun going down the road. I've made the conscious decision to leave behind resentments based on misunderstandings of my "belief" and instead embark on a fresh path. I'd like to rediscover my faith and ask the questions I shouldn't ask knowing that if the Creator truly is who He claims to eternally be in scripture, then I can have full trust in God to walk me towards that center of truth.

Recently, on a Sunday morning at my local church, the pastor taught that to have complete faith in God we need to lose faith in all else. I liked that sentiment and whether it was intended or not, it occurred to me that I needed to not only lose faith in mans interpretation of sacred texts, but I also had to lose faith in what I perceived as an inevitable failure and crisis of faith happening to me through further thought.

And he was right. Once I left my fear of failure and heresy behind and began a dialogue for my unanswerable questions, I was free. I know that everything will be alright. And why shouldn't I?

I hate to quote a fictional character in a movie that didn't so much define a generation of meatheads but allow them to feel some sense of depth, but, in the words of Tyler Durden.......

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything".

I'm still homesick for Eden, but I need to learn how to live in the world I was given and try to communicate and learn as much as I can along the way. I going to ask unanswerable questions. I'm not looking for answers because I know they are not there, but I can't fear the unknown and am not content to simply answer "I don't know" when I know full well that I've never thought about it deeper than the question itself.

Thanks again, welcome back, hopefully I can get somewhere.

Confusion Accomplished

2009-10-20T22:39:00.000-04:00

Genesis 11
The Tower of Babel
¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

³ They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

⁵ But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. ⁶ The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. That is why it was called Babel
________________________________________________________________________________

Ok another long post-------
Some of my friends and I here in Raleigh have decided that we ought to read the Bible. The whole thing. I'm talking Genesis to Revelation. This is something that I've always aspired to do but treated the thought like the idea of running a marathon...noble task, I may get halfway, but it may just not be for me.

Then I realized that that was a horribly lazy view. I make no bones about who I am and when people have the courage to ask me I respond with similar and honest courage. So when the depth of my holy laziness struck me the first thing to come to the surface was the Word.

It's not easy reading the Bible. But my beliefs hold me to certain expectations, at least for myself. One of those expectations is to be able to back up my beliefs and have an answer when people ask me about it - if for no other reason than I'll look like an uneducated emotional ass if I can't answer at least a few basic questions. This all leads me to the Bible and a general lack of understanding and knowledge about it which makes me a little uneasy. It's a sad state of affairs when you feel more comfortable operating an Ipod in your hands than an old book.
So here we are, plugging away. This time next year I'll have completed my first full read-thru of the Bible. I'm expecting some great things to come of this or at least some better understanding and more well-rounded outlook to what and how God speaks to us. We've decided to go about this chronologically and Andrea set up a blog with the reading order and dates.

Check it out here---http://finallyreadthebible.blogspot.com/

At this point I'm halfway thru Job but as I'm reading there have been questions without answers that are confusing the crap out of me. Worst part is that I'm feeling cynical and little peeved about it. I can only hope that God looks down and laughs at his bratty teenage son who thinks he knows it all.
I'd like to write out some of these questions / concerns here on this blog because, well, dammit, this is my blog and I'll cry if I want to!

First up in my list of uncertainties is the Tower of Babel story. So far in the Bible (up to Genesis 11) I've had a hard time not reading this like fantasy novel. It's an explanation for our origins and one that I'm supposed to take seriously but a lot of it just seems so far out there that it's just kinda hard to believe. People lived until they were 900? There was a big flood and God had Noah build an ark? And of course there's the Adam and Eve story but we'll come back to that in another post.

What I can't seem to understand about the quote above is whether God thinks that the tower and the peoples ability to build it was a good thing or a bad thing. He simply states "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." Then He summons what I'd assume to be angels to "go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

Now, I want to be careful about my heart here and not go spouting off on a rant. I really want to try and think through this. It seems like just taking it for what it is leaves too much to be desired. I don't want to get hung up on every detail and second guess the words every time I don't understand. But I can't seem to let this go. So....

Why did God want to do this?
What was at stake?
Was He protecting us from doing something awful that would hurt us?
Or was there something else? Had man figured out a way to reach the heavens?
Would this do some sort of cosmic damage to God's own laws?

Of course these questions lead me to bigger questions like how much does God play a role in our lives? How much does God have a say over our free-will and how and when does He interject His holy smack-downs? How do we know when it's God and not just ourselves willing things to happen. I don't want to quickly jump to conclusions either way. I want to give God the credit and glory when He corrects, rebukes, or answers a prayer. But then I also don't just want to go around thinking that He is in control all of the time and we just live in some la-dee-da cloud land. And what of God's will?

I'd heard the Tower of Babel passage talked about and I've read it before but this just seems like such an obvious hole in the plot. There's no motive. Maybe there will be a motive further in my reading. But right now, especially as I've just started reading Job, it just seems like more of God's playing with the toys that He made. And again, I don't want to offend or say anything ignorant. But I'm pretty sure the same God who made the world can deal with my confusion....that He caused?!

emo ain't what it was - a defense

2009-10-14T11:19:00.001-04:00

"How will I drink from that stream
How will my heart sing your praise
How will I lay down in green grass fields
When my soul is so afraid to
Rejoice."

- "The Last Word is Rejoice" from Mineral's 1998 album, &Serenading

So I rarely make any apologies when looking back over my musical tastes from the past with the exception of Vanessa Williams cassette here and a there with some 90's one-hit wonders like the Goo Goo Dolls thrown in for good measure. Ok so there are actually quite a few awful choices I've made but I wanted to take a minute to give some credence to a few bands that changed everything for me.

You see, back before teen age boys flat-ironed their hair and wore jeans that they stole from their girlfriend, their was a genre taking shape that was called, hopelessly and embarrassingly, 'emo'.

What I loved about most of these bands was their passion. There was a blatant admittance in spilling your guts and thoughts through the music that felt, at least to me, very freeing and there was a lot that I could relate to. Then Mineral broke up and Sunny Day didn't quite have that secret something anymore..."people change and people grow" ...

After almost 10 years of allowing newer music to infiltrate my head, I randomly.....well, truthfully I got excited at SDRE and Jawbox getting back together..... I decided to give a listen to Mineral again and the words have hit me harder than ever. Chris Simpson was wrestling with a faith and writing words and music that directly pierced through without allowing the world to throw them into the dirty mire of "christian music".

As I've been dealing with questions and doubts on my own it's a real comfort to have this music find it's way back into my life. It's amazing to me because I remember reading those lyrics and listening to that music and having a real relationship with it. But that was then and it was a pleasant surprise to not only pick up where I left off but to so quickly see new truth in it as it speaks to me in new ways. I guess it's due in part to a new understanding's and newer struggles and questions about these things after some maturity.

But, as usual, I'm certain that there's got to be something bigger going on here.

I'm still uncertain of how God operates in our lives and how much He interacts in these stories that we're building together. God feels far away but He seems very present as I listen again to one of my favorite bands. And I'm very grateful that He brought this back to me.

Emo just ain't what it used to be. It wasn't about eyeliner and skinny jeans. It was about honesty and the music.

Dude, I sound like some stoner talking about the 60's. Suck................

unthought known.......

2009-09-26T20:28:00.000-04:00

have you heard the new Pearl Jam yet?

Go buy it. It's easier and better than ever. In fact the next time you're at Target picking up some laundry detergent you'll probably see a few copies on the end cap of a checkout aisle. So buy a copy cause it's less than $12 and it's the best album yet. I'm a PJ fan and have been since 3rd grade. And this only reconfirmed my love!

File this under rock.

UPDATE: this makes me love them even more! True story - http://blog.seattlepi.com/earcandy/archives/180166.asp

ripening on the tree..........

2009-06-22T12:11:00.000-04:00

Apologies if this is a little self-indulgent or over-the-top, but the catharsis I hinted at in the first blog post will continue on!

So on Friday I resigned from my position as Sales Manager for Larry's Beans coffee. As i drove to my 8am meeting with the head honchos I looked back over the past 4 years. I remembered the good stuff...

- my interview for "shipping czar"...awkward first interview but was ready for a challenge and to work for a small company that seemed so passionate about it's coffee and it's people.

- all the fun times around the warehouse through the years whether it was cupping a great new lot of natural process sidamo, moving our desks around as the renovations happened, the trade shows with long days and longer nights.

- the thrill of a new account not because of what it meant in commission (the commission was barely an incentive, much less something to get excited about), but that I was building a new working relationship and effectively doing my job. And it was those relationships that made it fun.

Through it all one thing that I realize now more than ever is the value in those relationships and that a good one is always worth fighting for. I've been blessed to have some amazing people come into my life these past few years but in the end the one relationship that I couldn't salvage was the one with my employer.

Something that I have always loved about coffee and been drawn to is the magic that happens intrinsically over a cup of coffee. I don't want to get overly sentimental and turn this into some sort of Folgers commercial but when I'm honest, the best cups of coffee I've enjoyed in the past few years rarely were not completely centered around the appreciation of the brew. No, the appreciation was the presence of friends and love. I always joke with people whenever they ask me if I've had Kona or Jamaica Blue Mountain. They tell me it's the best in the world and my typical response is "of course you think it's the best! Everything you did on your honeymoon is Hawaii was the best you've ever had! - but have you tried this micro-lot from Colombia? It'll knock your socks off!" They'll kind of look at me suspiciously but I understand. Because it wasn't the actual coffee that was so great, it was the breeze from the ocean that blew through your hair as you gazed lovingly into your new wifes eyes wondering if things could ever possibly be better than that very moment. So yeah, I've got no doubt as to the amazingness of that coffee!

If we treat coffee properly we'll respect everybody involved in the process. We'll have a better understanding of why it's the highest sold commodity in the world next to oil and hopefully we can eventually call it something more than a commodity. We'll have a sense of something larger and that innate need to create, respond, and ultimately give love back.

If I could relate to coffee on a physical level, I feel like I'm still on the tree ripening. Not as green as I once was and not quite ready to be picked, but content to be where I'm at, soaking up the fresh air, feeling the rain, and knowing that there is a life inside of me that will transcend my meager farm. It's been a great journey so far and I'm ecstatic to see what happens next.

the brutality of self........

2009-06-04T12:48:00.000-04:00

One for the "thought" column....

Something I'm trying to think more about and let sink in is the fact that I'm unable in any capacity to achieve my hearts deepest desires.

Years of self-esteem boosting and ego-trips tend to get in the way when making a reassessment of of my standing before God.

The harder I try the harder I fall. And it's because of my motives to try harder. So selfish, so inner-absorbed, so proud and wanting to prove my worth and righteousness.

Yet there's nothing we can do more or less to be justified, regenerated, and loved in the deepest way that we desire most.

This will be the hardest lesson I learn yet.

summer on the cheap

2009-05-05T17:55:00.000-04:00

So we wrapped up the weekend quite well with three summer staples I love that we were able to find on the cheap: beer, crab, and new flip-flops!

the beer:
PBR....i know i know...it's only cool because it wasn't cool for so long....but you know what? I'll drink to that!
And that's pretty much how I'm trying to make my way....by being uncool for long enough it will allow me the time to refine and perfect what I had started and then this conversation will happen all the time just like it does for modern PBR fans---

"Dude! Have you tried Bonchak? That guy is awesome!"

- and of course someone who hasn't been with me lately will be like:
"man, Bonchak is lame! Don't you remember how much of an idiot he used to be?! You're crazy if you like that guy!"

In response you'll stick up for me and say:
"Yeah, he was crazy, but now he's pretty cool....you outta give him another shot!"

....then they'll come find me at the local Food Lion and be like:
"yeah....wow! It's the same old Bonchak, but something's definitely different...and I like it!"

---- A work in progress I am ladies and gentlemen....just hang on, there's good stuff getting worked out and every new release does away with the old crappy staleness, but hangs onto the fresh / crispness at a GREAT price we all can afford during these tough economic times!
- never perfect and there are definitely others that you may respect more, and rightfully so, but I'm still faithful....that's all I can promise! In case you were having trouble following along there - yes, I just compared myself to a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The crab:
what can I say.....i love ALL seafood. Lately I've been trying to have a more conscious approach to which sea life we pick up at the market. It's not fresh news to know that the seas are over-fished and we're constantly destroying precious eco-systems for random bits of fish that end up at Wendy's during Lent. However.... I love crab. I've always said that if for some crazy reason I ended up on death row, my final meal would be about 5 pounds of fresh steamed King Crab and drawn butter with about 20 bottles of Dos Equis. So when the crab at our favorite market went on sale for $4.99 / lb, it wasn't even a question what was going to be for dinner! And I figure, rather naively I admit, that if it's that cheap then the supply is in abundance and they need to move it out....so who am I to stand in the way? Gimme 6 clusters of those bad boys. And hey according to this awesome site for sustainable fish choices , the snow crab we got is in the " good alternative" column.

The flip-flops:
I also love flip-flops....if I had better circulation I'd wear them year round like some of my hippy friends. But alas, I'm half Ukrainian and it's instinctual in me to also love good boots in the winter! So every year when the spring hits I'm on the prowl for a fresh pair of flips (don't ever call them thongs or I will hunt you down and it will not be pretty). My favorite brand for about the past 3 years has been Sanuk. Lucky for me they've done a great job getting their wears into many different outlets and they're a lot easier to find than they used to be. Well I stumbled into REI to return some stuff (which btw, say what you will about REI being the WalMart of outdoor stores, their return policy is unmatched!), and low and behold....one last pair of Sanuk "South of the Border Edition" Baja flips in a size 12 for the big Bonchak bear paws. Then I saw the price....$50! For flip flops?! You've gotta be out of your mind! But I went for em anyway...they were leather, fit perfectly, and just felt right....after all, I consider myself a flip flop afcionado and have wasted too much money on other flips that just don't hold up the way Sanuks do. Get to the register....on sale! Even deeper sale for REI members! And my unused dividend! Holy crap! Could it be?! I got charged $5.81 for a pair of flip flops that would have cost me $5o a week prior. Love you REI!

Those were some of the big highlights of the weekend. Good things at great prices. Then Monday hit, but hell, it's already Tuesday and I'm off Friday and Monday for a nice little trip to Pawleys island so everything is doing pretty dang good!

Will we ever get out of this crappy garage?!

2009-05-03T08:51:00.000-04:00

Ok folks, just so you know, I've come to the conclusion that I've got a million reasons to not do this blog and so far only a few have presented themselves as relevant. I really want this thing to happen but I've got some demons that need to be worked out.

Here goes:

1)This blog is not important.
- Why anybody would care what I have to say about coffee, rock, or thoughts is just plain arrogant on my part to assume so. Maybe not.
2) I'm an attention freak.
- Meaning, this is only fun for me when people respond to a post and it becomes interactive. But herein lies the problem....

3) When it begins, the blog is a one-way conversation. A sort of public speaking-out-loud.
- But in the same way that people freak me out when they actually talk to themselves out loud in public (crazy lady in the aisle at Target...crazy guy at the bar - well he was at least talking to his beer), it freaks me out to think about speaking out loud for a faceless audience. But wait - you DO have faces and I know who you are!! Once it becomes interactive it's more fun for for the stated reason above. However now that I'm aware someone is listening it's not as free-flowing and I feel guilty. Yet, without fans, Bob Seger would still be in his garage drinking Old Milwaukee and singing about those good old days he never had....?

4) The Guilt
- Yes, I feel guilty. Because at some point, what I'm really attempting to do, now that I'm aware there are people reading, is to impress you. I want to say something witty, funny, interesting or I want to "discover" some new music or coffee trick for you....and why? Because I want you to be impressed. And that's going to be a big mountain to climb when I think about how much I don't know about the latest and greatest of the coffee and / or rock world. My wife schools me daily on bands you and I won't hear about for another year and even then we'll still think that we've discovered them because they're on the cover of Magnet.

I've never been much of a journal'er. And really if I'm only writing for myself why would I make it public and invite others to read it? Because I like my thoughts and think they're good enough that they ought to be typed out and thrown at you. But I really prefer a two-way conversation. How can I make this different? How can I engage you more?

SO......
with all that, let me firstly thank you, my few readers who subscribe to this blatant self-aggrandizement. In doing all of this I'm working out all of the above. Thanks for your patience and understanding....and hopefully I'll be thanking you for your comments to this post. (*hint hint*).

Hopefully I'll be thanking you for your encouragement and cheers along the path of this written marathon of thoughts on coffee, rock, and well...more thoughts.

what a wimp

2009-01-05T11:04:00.001-05:00

3 posts - that was all I could squeek out. What a wimp. It's the same with pull-ups.
Let's see if I can pump anything new out in the new year.

Stay tuned

I forgot about God

2008-10-06T11:25:00.000-04:00

I plug along through my day to day and it occurs to me that I forgot about God. I forget everyday, all the time. Like an old friend....

It's comforting and encouraging to remember that there is something bigger, higher, and much more important than me happening everyday all around me.

The Fire Theft song "Uncle Mountain" puts it well:
Drowned in a world of pity and sorrow
Then a burst within the light
What was I looking to find?
Run along to the sea
I want love
If love wants me
I want God
If God wants me
Just can't hold on to what I believe

waking the dead

2008-09-25T08:39:00.000-04:00

up for discussion in the rock arena -

Picked up the new Dead Confederate yesterday at schoolkids. I was pretty excited because for one thing I rarely buy new cd's anymore and to that end do I rarely anticipate the release of a new cd and jump on it when it "drops" to use the parlance of our hip hop times.

I'm loving it and it's the perfect bombasticness that I love to hear in the fall time. The trouble is that I'm stuck in the past. Something I realized quickly is that everything I love about this album relates to everything I've loved about music growing up in the 90's. *note* - I'm not so sure I can say that I 'grew up in the 90's' - however my taste in music was steeped in grunge and punk and i've not listened to music the same way since the release of early 90's albums like Where You Been by Dionsaur Jr, Incesticide by Nirvana, Ten and VS. by Pearl Jam, and where would I be today without the Smashing Pumpkins? Melodic's and intervals got the best of me when emo came to light, but died when Death Cab exploded. ---Although the latest Death Cab is nice. And I've always loved a lone acoustic guitar.

All that said, I have a distaste for overly pop sounding happy rock. But I'm by no means a goth. I'm just kinda stuck right now and it was evident when I realized how excited I was about the new Dead Confederate album. Don't get me wrong - that new album is great and will remain in my player for a long time to come.

But the realization is hard. It's the realization that what I like about it is that it's extremely reminiscent of music from 10 years ago that I liked. It's dirty, messy, angry, and covered with distorted guitars run through spooky reverb effects.

So I take comfort in this one thing....the last time I felt this way, (that I'm stuck in a music rut, that rock is dead and there is nothing new - which by the way, been reading Ecclesiates---he felt my pain! There's nothing new under the sun!), was in 1997. And there were some great things that rose to the top during those middle / dead years that have stuck with me:

- Radiohead, OK Computer
- Pearl Jam, No Code (96) and Yield (98)
- Bjork, Homogenic
- The Verve, Urban Hymns

-----and so many more

...and I thought rock was dead. Far from it, rock is rollin' right along.

BTW, the new Kings of Leon is currently making my day.

day 1 of new blog

2008-09-24T08:41:00.000-04:00

this is mostly for me, so if I say something absurd, it's me not caring who's reading this. There is something inherently dangerous or thrilling knowing that somebody else could or will read what I write. Which leads me to my first complaint....there will be many more.

I hate blogs....mostly ones like this. People write about obscure things going on their lives as if they're movie stars and the world needs to know. Nobody needs to know, despite how completely awesome it may have been, that the peanut butter toast i made this morning was completely awesome and big thanks to my wife for seeking out a great new "all Natural" peanut butter that you don't need to stir.

Case in point. You didn't need to hear all that. So I'll try to keep you in mind as I write. If I go off on a tangeant, well, then all I can say is I'm sorry...I have a tendency to do that kinda stuff.

3 main topics are up for discussion, everything else falls under one of these three umbrellas:

Coffee---i'm a big fan, but don't geek out on me man....it's just coffee.

Rock - as in big loud guitars and drums. I was born to boogie til the day I die. RIP Bon Scott (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Scott)

Thought - lettin it all out here. God, life, love, death...not too much to sound like an college poetry student, not too little to sound like a drab out-of-touch monkey.

There ya have it. I look forward to it all!
Hold your choice beverage up high...now with the other hand throw the rock horns....there ya go...

Cheers!