a positive vibe

To offset some negative posts, the following are things that make me happy:

• Laughing with Golden
• Lists
• Seeing Forrest step on my soapboxes in class
• References to the happy crack in my basement
• Well-written satire
• When Golden gives me acts of service
• Staying up late on a Friday
• Sleeping in on a Saturday
• A good Chipotle steak fajita
• Winning in a game that requires skill
• A blanket, a recliner, and a remote control
• Passing someone who is driving slowly in the fast lane
• Working through a brainteaser
• Learning how people think
• A comfortable pair of jeans and a cotton tee
• 80-degree weather
• Being compared to a fictional gay man
• Truth
• Cynical humor
• A visit to a bookstore or the library
• Letting go of responsibilities
• "Inspirational" Posters like the one pictured below from Despair.com that exactly describe my feelings
• Completing things

a negative vibe

I am currently stuck in a catch-22. I don't want to come across as all negative on this site, but I personally think most interesting writing is negative. At the least, most humorous writing is negative. I have said this earlier but it bears repeating; people are generally funnier when they are pessimistic. So what do I do?

I have written posts that were not negative, but they are always the ones that simply relay information without any attempt at humor or any form of hyperbole or even intellectual insight. Writing something without humor or insight is fine for a lot of situations, but usually for me that leaves factual telling of a story (which I have done) or a touchy feely post (which I will probably never do).

I keep asking myself whether it is all that bad that I want to post as a pessimist. I still don't have an answer. Knowing me, I probably never will.

guilty

I had an epiphany yesterday. We were discussing a sense of guilt in Sunday School when someone in class noted that his first real experience with feeling guilt was when he was thirteen. Thirteen! This stuck out to me as weird, but what got me thinking was the fact that this was in response to a story about someone else who also had their first experience with serious guilt at age thirteen. My epiphany was that maybe what I assumed to be a normal level of guilt was actually wrong.

I cannot remember a first experience with feeling serious guilt about something that I had done, because I can't remember a time when I haven't had a healthy sense of guilt. I don't know for sure why I have such a well-developed sense of guilt. I assume it comes from a combination of genetics and environment, but what doesn't?

From the time I was very young I always marveled at those who could do things without much concern that I would have felt very guilty about. I guess I always knew on a subconscious level that the person probably didn't really feel guilt, but I never really could understand how the person didn't feel guilty. Didn't that person feel that their actions had consequences? Is this something that I was taught that others were not?

I think what concerns me the most is that I don't want to condemn my (long in the) future kids to having to deal with serious guilt issues, but at the same time I know my strong conscience kept me out of things that caused others to stumble. A parent must instill a sense of guilt in his or her child for the child to properly develop, I am sure, but how to strike the right balance. If I screwed that up, I'd feel so guilty.

by its cover

Last night I caught the tail end of a discussion at church between Forrest and someone else in the church. What I caught was Forrest describing the book that he is going to teach in Sunday this quarter called Blue Like Jazz. At this point I have not read the book, but I am definitely interested in reading it and learning from it after hearing Forrest's description.

The conversation, however, was not started as a discussion of the merits of the book topic, but as a question of why a Sunday School class would be taught out of a book that did not have an overtly Christian name. I don't need to belabor my feelings about judging things based on whether they appear Christian, but if I didn't this post would end right here.

silver dollar city: my version

Since everybody else is putting up multi-picture posts, I guess this is one more bridge I'll jump off. I got a little camera-happy this weekend, probably to the chagrin of those around me.

When we went to visit Golden's family for Labor Day and to celebrate her Dad's birthday, the decision was made to go to Silver Dollar City. We weren't really skipping church, because we went to the Wilderness Church at the park. Interestingly enough a lot of people came up with the idea to visit the park on that exact same day. I don't know exactly how many people were there this weekend, but it certainly seemed like a lot.

There are a few rides that I was interested in going on, one of which was the Powder Keg. This is a new ride and apparently goes from zero to some high mph value almost immediately, thus creating a powder keg affect. When we got to the line for the ride, though, we saw that it was rather long. No one in the group, including me, thought that it would be worth the wait. Later, there was talk of mechanical difficulties with the ride. It was probably best that we didn't get on that ride.

We were able to do other things besides the Powder Keg, though, including the Wild Fire. In my opinion an amusement park really isn't much of a park unless it has a good classic steel coaster, so Wild Fire makes Silver Dollar City worth a visit.

We also went on a few other coaster rides like Fire in the Hole and Thunderation. Both are fine, but really aren't incredibly exciting. Golden enjoys quoting some recordings that riders hear because those recordings are the same as when she rode it as a kid, but I didn't have the same memories to draw from.

One tradition that Golden's family follows almost every time they go to Silver Dollar City is to eat lunch at The Mine restaurant. It is a buffet place that is build to give you the impression that you are actually in a mine. The plates and cups are metal and utilitarian and the tables and chairs are very simplistic wood creations. The lighting is from lamps hung on the walls and there is even an interior pond that runs through a small waterwheel to give the impression--well, I am not completely certain the impression that it is supposed to give.

There is also a table that is rigged to rise slowly when a switch is thrown and confuse the people eating there. This was the first time that I have seen people eat at that table and not have the table rise on them. The waitress seemed a little busy, so maybe no one had time to flip the switch.

One of the things that Golden had decided she wanted do to was get kettle corn from Silver Dollar City. We saw a stand for kettle corn but decided we would wait until later to pick some up nearer to the entrance to the park. Once we got to where we thought kettle corn could be bought around the gate to the park, we found out that the kettle corn stand was no more. Golden's Dad volunteered to go back across the park and get the sought after corn. I volunteered to tag along. The corn was good, but I am still not sure it was worth all the exercise.

I asked Golden if the park was everything she wanted it to be. She commented that it was. I then asked if we were set for another five years. Apparently we will be going to Silver Dollar City again some time before five years is up.

one zero zero

This is my one hundredth post, and so I thought I needed to make it special and unique. I have been really concerned about inadvertantly repeating myself as I have gotten more and more of a history of posts behind me.

I thought about posting about the weird dream I had last night. In it, Felicity and Batman were arguing over the pronounciation of the word "potato" and a Chucky doll was arbitrating. God wouldn't get involved because Batman has a tattoo. The issue was eventually settled in a sand volleyball match in South Carolina when Felicity couldn't stand the temperature of the sand from the heat of the day.

I didn't figure that story was as good as the last time I mowed the yard, though. I had to go over it four times on account of my OCD, but I didn't mind that much because I was wearing comfortable jeans that fit my butt just right. Golden thought I looked like Kip after all that mowing and I was worked up enough to kill a boar.

Perhaps the best story was from a girl movie, or was it The Pianist? Anyway, this guy's worlds are colliding because his girlfriend becomes friends with his poker buddies and gives away his poker tell. Any time he is bluffing his car alarm goes off. I determined that I probably shouldn't relay that story, though, because it is probably copyrighted.

I guess I'll just have to be optimistic and come up with something off the cuff. Even at 26 I gotta start sometime.

ironic

It's like rain on your wedding day

It's a free ride when you've already paid

It's the good advice that you just didn't take

Who would've thought...it figures

The assertion has been raised in my office recently that the song Ironic doesn't really talk about anything that is ironic. I haven't come to any solid conclusion myself, but it was something to think about.

There is one thing that has happened to me, though, that I think is ironic. I took my sister to the airport this morning and so needed to plan out the trip from the house to the airport then to work. Typically, the quickest trip would be to take 635 around the west side of the city then drive up 29 to the airport. This makes for almost a direct drive from my house and is maybe 25-30 minutes. I was planning this in my head until I remembered that the 635 bridge over the Missouri river is shut down, so I would need to take an alternate route that would add about ten minutes to the trip one way (which is significant in the morning). That wasn't what was ironic, though.

As I was talking with my sister about something Golden came in and noted that she just heard that the 635 bridge was going to open the next day, but it would only open in the afternoon rather than in the morning. That was about as close to useful as the completion to the construction project could be without actually being useful. Isn't it ironic?