My tweets
- @JoeyMcAllister Something bigger indeed. *WINK WINK* in reply to JoeyMcAllister 2 hrs ago
- Really dude? I saw you stare at the cart corral before you left your cart in the lot. It was only another 40 feet. Really? 4 hrs ago
- Took the Droid X to Verizon to gery checked out. We wiped it to be sure. Still waiting for backup assistant. Ugh. 5 hrs ago
- @megatronzinski Hey. Thanks. America. in reply to megatronzinski 19 hrs ago
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Blog Archives
Blogroll
writings Archive
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We’re all embedded journalists now
Posted on July 6, 2010 | View Comments
- Not an actual war
“We’re all embedded journalists now.”
-Me, about 18 minutes ago
I was thinking about how our overseas “work” during the Global War on Terror came home, as it were, to our televisions with the placement of embedded journalists. These were newspeople who climbed into tanks and ran through the mountains of Afghanistan and the deserts of Iraq with the US military. Being embedded meant becoming truly a part of a fighting unit and not just some goofus with a camera standing hundreds of feet away from the action. They were in the thick of it and it made for pretty interesting coverage. Very often, these reporters were up close and personal with the war. Some of them were injured. Some of them died.
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Quantum science and poetic expression
Posted on June 28, 2010 | View Comments
I sent a friend an article by Deepak Chopra earlier today with the note “Read this – it’s a window into what is running through my mind all the time!” Chopra’s article was about the Higgs boson and its implications for billions of religious people the world over. Or at least, that’s what it started out being about. He goes on to talk about different view of quantum mechanics. You know, waves versus discrete states and superposition and all that good stuff that makes blood shoot from your nose if you think about it for too long. At one point, he talks a bit about how consciousness itself is capable (due to the relatively high gravity of the brainpan once you leave Planck space) of collapsing waveforms into observable pieces of reality. Whew. -
Deep thinking about telephone poles
Posted on June 8, 2010 | View CommentsI penned the following poem during my sophomore year at Aurora University. Who knows what I was thinking?
A lotta goddamn telephone poles
Stuck in their goddamn telephone holes
Straight up at goddamn ninety degrees
Swaying not much in the goddamn breeze.
-pine treesOh that’s right! I was driving around one day in the delivery van for the printing press where I worked and had a moment of blinding clarity. All the telephone poles around me (and there were many) were each a former pine tree, maybe a lodgepole or Douglas fir. I thought about all the streets in all the cities in all the states across the country and realized that we had cut down a LOT of trees to carry our wires.
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Losing old gods, finding nature
Posted on January 26, 2010 | View Comments
I recently headed back to Colorado for a wonderful weekend of R&R with my girlfriend and her family. We went skiing at Crested Butte, an absolutely amazing mountain way out in the center of the state. Here’s what happens when I ski:1. I fall down. This happens a handful of times. During this particular trip, I managed to stay vertical 95% of the day, even completing a blue square run without dropping.2. I come closer to completion. Allow me to explain: When I’m sliding down the side of a mountain fast as hell, staring out into the distance where other peaks look back at me, feeling the warmth of the sun and listening to the whoosh of air past my ears, I really do find a little slice of heaven.I’m guessing that this is a not-too-foreign experience for those familiar to strapping slippery boards to their feet and shooting down a hill. I relish these moments as I coast towards the base of the mountain. I use religious language to describe these times. Increasingly, I am not alone.Bron Taylor’s “Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality, and the Planetary Future” describes the “replacement” or at least supplementation of traditional religions by more sensory forms of spirituality. I want to read this book. I grew up around trees and I feel a very deep connection to nature. Here’s a very important piece of an interview with Bron Taylor on Religion Dispatches: -
Sea Glass
Posted on October 31, 2009 | View CommentsSea glass
Smooth
sand makin blunt what can cut
no edge to cut
you with
this shit is clear and blue and green and brown
in triangles and nodules and squares and shapes
made by:
drunks on a dock
kids with Coke problems
cruise ships going under
Crusoe lost again or
Sting
I can’t explain the attraction – sea glass doesn’t
catch light or
let you see through it or
help you in a bar fight
It’s
blunt and cloudy and beautiful and old
and smooth
I find sharp pieces and recommit them to the rolling tides for my children. -
Most horrifying thing I’ve ever eaten
Posted on October 16, 2009 | View Comments
I couldn't even bring myself to post a picture
For at least the past two years I have had the habit of creating what I like to call the “oh my god” smoothie. Its name comes from the phrase that usually escapes my lips when I taste what I have created. This is a drink that I make with my Breville IKON blender that I consume after long bike rides or awesome workout sessions. It has two basic ingredients: leaf spinach and beets (which are, sadly, usually canned).
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La Figlia che Piange – T.S. Eliot
Posted on October 2, 2009 | View CommentsO quam te memorem virgo…
STAND on the highest pavement of the stair—
Lean on a garden urn—
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair—
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise—
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. -
Unexpected places and surprise finds
Posted on October 1, 2009 | View Comments
California coastline - like a painting
Jackie and I decided to spend her last two days with me going on an actual vacation. After spending a summer apart (she in Kenya, me in other parts of Kenya, Tanzania, London, Chicago, Denver, etc.), it seemed natural to want to relax. We cruised up to Sonoma for their Vintage Festival, tasted some wines, visited the vineyards, and stayed in a beautiful little place along the Russian River.
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The Denver Dispatch of Doom – Vol. 12 (Tanzania edition)
Posted on September 8, 2009 | View CommentsEvery six weeks or so, I hammer out a message to a handful of my friends to update them on my doings. This is the latest installment.
Hello all,
I hope this letter finds you healthy and happy. The more that I think about the duck-billed platypus, the less I understand it.
Read more on The Denver Dispatch of Doom – Vol. 12 (Tanzania edition)…
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From: Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Frank Barry, Guest Post: 4 Keys to Building a Successful Nonprofit Web Site
Posted on July 13, 2009 | View CommentsI especially liked #4, which is one of the things that I’m proud to have helped The 1010 Project with:
4) Make Yourself Easy to Find on the Social Web
Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (know about the new nonprofit call to action), LinkedIn and Flickr are becoming exceedingly important to any nonprofits online presence. It’s likely your organization is already using one or more of these social networks to engage with supporters, spread your message or raise money. Chris Brogan likes to call these places “outposts”. Your main website should highlight your presence on these sites so that your readers can connect with you in social ways online – they want to get to know you and they want to see that you are doing creative things in fundraising.