The Train Pin

From the time I was an infant until I was 18 years old, I went to church every Sunday with my mother. And I mean EVERY Sunday. I can probably count on both hands the number of Sundays I wasn't sitting in one of those red pews at Kingsway Christian Church over the course of those 18 years. And at every service I attended there, I saw Herman and Judy Bauman there too.

Judy ran the nursery at Kingsway and I was the first baby she took care of there. I would go as far to say I was not only her first but her favorite child she ever cared for but Judy had a loving way about her that probably made countless children over the years feel the same way. Herman was an elder at Kingsway and was famous for joyfully doing anything that needed done at the church and for praying unwaveringly for any and every prayer request he knew about.  One of my earliest memories in life is seeing Herman with his big smile at church every Sunday.

Herman was also an old school kind of guy. He considered the King James Version to be the "authorized" version of Holy Scripture and he always wore a suit and tie to church. Most, if not all weeks he accessorized his suit with a small golden pin. I'm sure there were many pins he wore over the years but I only remember one.  The train pin.

I was like many other young boys in that I was obsessed with trains. Seeing Herman's train pin every time I went to church made my day. Considering Herman was a lifelong railroad man, I have a feeling that seeing a child so enthusiastic about trains may have made his day as well.  One Sunday, while admiring Herman's train pin, he presented me with a train pin of my own.  I remember it as one of the happier days of my young life.  I believe the fact that I remember it at all testifies to that.

Two weeks ago, Herman passed away. More accurately I should say Herman was promoted.  Whenever a Christian brother or sister died, Herman would always say they had earned their promotion to Heaven. If anyone had ever earned their promotion, it was Herman. He may have been the kindest and most caring individual I have ever known.  More importantly, he was certainly one of the most faithful believers I have ever met.  His loving spirit was probably only matched by his wife Judy.

For whatever reason, since Herman's promotion, I haven't been able to stop thinking about that little train pin.  I don't know why this small trinket has suddenly been thrust into the forefront of my consciousness.  I've racked my brain trying to figure out some greater meaning of it, or some metaphorical significance.  At the end of the day, I think it may just be the fondest early memory I have of an extremely important man in my life.

I have been lucky enough to continue to see Herman and Judy on a regular basis throughout my entire life.  I never met either of my natural grandfathers and my adopted one passed before I was a teenager.  Herman filled that role in my life, even if I never told him as much.  I love and miss you Herman, but I will see you again soon.

I'm a Hustler Baby

Before I start I just want to give a heads up that this will be the start of a blogging binge that will last at least through the end of the year. So for the seven people in my life that actually enjoy it when I write things, consider this your Christmas present. And I don't mean that metaphorically. I didn't buy you anything, so this is your present.

Moving on.

I went to go see American Hustle with my wife on Friday night as the second half of our dinner and a movie date. The first half was dinner at Applebee's because my wife (a teacher) had received a gift card from one of her students. (Side note: my wife was bragging that her job was better than mine for reasons such as receiving gifts like this, until I pointed out that my job actually paid a livable wage.  She still get summers off so we called it a tie.)  Anyway, we had decided on American Hustle for a variety of reasons; It was being touted as one of the best movies of the year, it had a cast of actors and actresses we both thoroughly enjoyed and finally it sounded like an interesting story. So needless to say we were both going in with pretty lofty expectations.

Maybe that was part of the problem.  Let me be clear, this was not a bad movie. It just felt like it was missing something. And for being not much over two hours, it felt really long. Full disclosure here, we went at 9 and didn't get out of there until after 11, and I'm probably the oldest 26 year old around. I won't deny that this could have been a factor. But regardless, I could tell that I was siting in the same spot for over two hours and that's not a great sign for any movie.

American Hustle promised to resonate with the audience the same way Goodfellas did a generation before. That promise went unfulfilled. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly went wrong, but for whatever reason, the movie just didn't connect with me enough to force me to care about the fate of its characters.  The actors performed as well as I had expected and the story was interesting even if it was a little on the predictable side.  There were some funny lines interspersed with quality dramatic dialogue.  I just didn't care. The result of the film never mattered to me, and I think if you're making a good movie, you have to hook your audience so they feel invested in the outcome.  Nothing about this movie ever grabbed me and told me to pay attention.

It is entirely possible I'm alone in feeling this way, and I'm alright with that. Like I said, all the pieces were there for a great movie, it just didn't come together for me.  If you have seen the movie let me know what you think. 

Zach Sobiech is Amazing

I am laying in bed with a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes. My wife fell asleep before me and since I don't have to work tomorrow I thought I would browse Facebook for a few minutes until I fell asleep. Expecting to find mostly things I didn't care about and statuses to pray for Oklahoma (which we should), I stumbled upon a video. In fact I stumbled upon this video. Open that link and you will find a short story and a 20 minute documentary about a young man who I do not know and had never heard of until about an hour ago. Yet here I am. Laying in bed. Crying over a stranger who died this morning.

If you haven't watched the video yet, here's a spoiler alert, this kid is amazing. His name is Zach Sobiech and despite having never met him, I am borderline heartbroken that he's gone. You may have noticed I said that Zach is amazing and not the past tense was and that's because death cannot stop the impact of a life lived this way. His legacy lives on in everyone he knew so the least some random blogger can do is to show him the respect he deserves and give him a present tense compliment. Zach will continue to be amazing long after his death, just ask the girl who fell in love with him, or the sister whom he calls his his best friend or his parents who look up to him.

I'm not really sure why the story of this remarkable young man has touched me the way it has. I mean it's always tragic when a young person dies but in this instance it's more than that. Maybe it's so sad because he so very clearly has so much to offer the world. Maybe it's so sad because I can't stop imagining the pain his girlfriend and little sister and the rest of his loved ones are going through as I type this. Maybe it has gotten to me because I'm constantly wrestling with the idea of my own mortality. Maybe it's so sad because when I listen to the words of his hit song "Clouds" I hear the heartbreak from a kid who seemingly couldn't stop smiling even as his life slipped away. Chances are pretty good it's some combination of all these things and a few more that I can't properly put into words.

I guess at the end of the day learning about Zach just makes a lot of the things I do seem pointless. In this moment there is nothing I would like more than to live less pointlessly and more like Zach Sobiech.  I cant help but think that if more people spent just one day with the perspective that he had on life, the world would be irrevocably changed for the better. And I can't help but think that I should start today.

It's been a while . . .

So, apparently it's been almost two years since I've posted a blog on here.  That is a pretty good long time.  It has been probably about a year since I have written anything for public consumption at all.  I don't know if I've been missed or not, but I suppose that doesn't really matter.  What matters is that I miss writing.  I tweet from time to time because it's the lazy man's version of writing.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on twitter, I enjoy it quite a bit.  My point is simply that it is pretty difficult to wax eloquent in 140 characters or less.  If you are capable of such feats, you are more talented than I am.

I assume that most of the people who read my blog are people that know me and keep up with what's going on in my life in ways (mostly facebook) other than this blog.  Because of this, I am not going to waste your time with a rundown of everything that's happened in the last two years.  It's been two years; lots of stuff happened; that's not why I'm here.  Now if I have a random following in Iceland or somewhere that thought I was dead and is now ecstatic that I am in fact alive, I do apologize for not filling you in on what's been happening.  If you are one of these hypothetical people, get in touch with me and I will give you the scoop.

The logical question would then be, well why am I here?  This isn't an existential question, at least not in the way I mean it.  Basically I just want to make someone smile, or laugh, or if I'm really lucky make their day.  That can sound like a pretty ambitious goal from some random blog about some random guy's life but you never know, it could happen.  In the past you may have noticed that I had a tendency to stray away from serious topics in my blogs.  I was usually trying to tell a funny story or trying to tell a boring story while somehow making it funny along the way.  Well, I have a serious story today. I'd like to tell you about the loss of a loved one.

The Jeep first came into my life in September of 2007. I had been driving a 1994 Oldsmobile which can best be described as a boat. It was an enormous old man car. I liked the car but didnt love it, mostly because whenever I was braking down a hill I felt like a runaway freight train careening out of control. So as much as I enjoyed the luxury and leather seats, that's factor was a pretty big check in the negative column. My run with the Olds came to an unceremonious end when I was rear ended by a guy going 40 mph. I happened to be with my now wife in one of the first times we ever hung out. I quickly turned to her after getting hit and rather than checking to see if she was ok, I asked her in a panic if thy was my fault. That's me, always the gentleman. No wonder she married me. Anyway, I drove the mangled remains of that car for about a month before I had to turn it in to the insurance company to collect the fat check coming my way.

At this point I had been looking mostly at SUVs to replace my car since I lived at school down two miles of gravel road. It came down to the wire before I chose my new vehicle. It was a Sunday afternoon and my dad and I had narrowed our search down to a Cadillac and a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee limited. Don't ask me how the Cadillac my the finals, I think it's because my dad has always wanted one but either way, we test drove the Caddy first. It was a pretty smooth ride and everything you would expect from such a nice car.  We told the nice man selling the Cadillac that we had a Jeep to test drive before we made our decision. The man kind of chuckled and said, I will take my chances with my Cadillac over a Jeep any day, I will see you back here in a little bit.

To make a long story slightly less long, I never saw or spoke to the man with the Cadillac again. I think my dad called him to tell him we were no longer interested because that was the right thing to do but as soon as I got into the that Jeep, it was a done deal for me. I was immediately infatuated with this vehicle. I loved the way it looked, I loved the way it drove and I loved driving it. I couldn't have been happier with my choice. And then the winter came, and things got even better. Omaha was absolutely dumped on with snow that year and people were getting stuck and snowed in with much regularity. Not me. I drove where ever and however I wanted without any issues. If I wasn't in love with the Jeep before, I certainly was now. This thing was unbelievable and it was all mine.

While there were a few ups and downs with the Jeep (mostly a couple difficult repairs) my allegiance never wavered. Even as I got married and eventually bought a new, more fuel efficient car, I kept the Jeep and drove it whenever I got the chance. Things started to deteriorate a few months ago when my parents suggested they might want to donate the Jeep since it wasn't being driven as much anymore. By this point the Jeep was the third vehicle for my wife and I and it spent most of its time parked in my parents driveway. Despite this, I was physically shaken by the idea of the Jeep no longer being a part of my life. No one was more surprised by this reaction than I was. I thought I had gotten over the Jeep, I thought I had moved on, but clearly I hadn't.

After this, I started driving the Jeep more often, almost daily in fact. I spent some time, effort, and money fixing it up. In December I had a vintage Jeep moment. A heavy snow storm had shut down much of the city and the Jeep had been parked on the street when the snow plow came by. There was snow packed almost up to the door in the drivers side and it appeared as if I might be snowed in just like the rest of the helpless, non-Jeep owning world. However my wife had asked me to go get some groceries so I decided to give my Jeep a chance to shine. After cleaning the car off, I thought I would back up a little to try and create some space to get out. The Jeep barely budged. At this point I figured it was all or nothing so I put the Jeep in drive, turned the wheel all the way to the side and hit the gas. What moments early had appeared to be an impenetrable snow mountain felt like little more than a speed bump as I cruised out of my parking spot and into the road. Little did I know, that would be the last snow storm the Jeep and I would tackle together.

About two weeks ago, I was driving the Jeep to pick up my wife from work. It had been acting a little funny but I didn't think too much of it. On the way home, we started to have problems. I would push the gas pedal and the engine would rev but I couldn't accelerate. I pulled onto a neighborhood street to investigate the issue. My less than formidable skills mechanical skills were no match for what ailed the Jeep. As it would turn out the transmission had gone bad and the price tag on that meant it was not going to be fixed. The Jeep had passed away.

Last night as I battled through my first blizzard without the Jeep, I missed it more than usual. I always thought I was a good driver in the snow. I'm not. I'm horrible. It turns out the Jeep overcompensated for my lack of skills more than I could imagine. Now driving a sedan in the snow feels like Russian roulette every time I climb in the car.

When all was said and done, the Jeep gave me over 5 years of an undefeated record. Zero speeding tickets.  Zero accidents. Zero times getting stuck in the snow. Here's to you Jeep, you'll always hold a special place in my heart.

The Reason I Haven't Written Much

From time to time, some friends of mine who enjoy my blogs will encourage me, usually via facebook to write something new. There are three of them who do this (Josh, Al, and Beth), and I'm not sure if they have worked out some sort of schedule for reminding me that it is time to write again, but I figured I owe them an explanation as to why their urging is often ignored. (Note: Now that I have started writing Husker articles for bleacherreport.com, I seem to have appeased Al.)

I'm fairly confident when it comes to my writing ability. In fact, it is one of the only things about myself I am confident in at all. The strange thing about it is, despite knowing that I am a good writer, whenever I post a new piece of work, I am paranoid that I've somehow "lost it" until I receive positive feedback on it. When I first started writing for the Bleacher Report, this was difficult for me because a lot of the feedback you receive as a sports writer is negative. It does not mean that you are no longer a good writer, or even that you are wrong about the topic. A lot of times it simply means that the only people dumb enough to disagree with me are the same ones that are dumb enough to be loud about it. This is not to say that I'm always right, its just that those who disagree with me in an intelligent manner I view as positive feedback because it allows me to enter into a discussion with the person and its usually rather productive.

I once heard from a best-selling author whose name currently escapes me (maybe Malcolm Gladwell) that writers have only a certain number of words in them and after they run out, all they can come with with is mindless gibberish. At some point, I became afraid that I would run out of words. So I guarded them. I decided not to write anything unless it was going to be absolute gold. I wanted everything I wrote to be the best thing you had ever read. At the very least I wanted it to be the best thing I'd ever written. Recently I realized that this is utterly moronic. Not the part about wanting everything I write to be the best you've ever read or the best I've ever written, I believe that's a great, although lofty thing to strive for. No, the idiotic part was guarding my words. If I died tomorrow, what difference would it make if I had more words left to write? I decided I would rather live a long life and at some point, run out of well-crafted words to write than I would die knowing I left some of them in the tank.

I am currently trying to become a professional writer. I've gotten some contacts from a friend of mine who works at a newspaper and I'm doing everything I currently can to try and make this happen. Who knows, maybe someday I will be a best-selling author, or maybe the high point of my writing career will have been being named the #2 Husker football writer for the Bleacher Report in May 2011. Either way, at the very least, I will know that even if I fail, it will not be because I did not try. Unfortunately, that's not something I've been able to say very often in my life but now is as good a time to start as any.

The Jesus Juke

A few weeks ago my brother wrote a blog about "The Jesus Juke" and those who perform it. For those of you who don't know, a Jesus Juke is essentially when "someone takes what is clearly a joked filled conversation completely reverses direction into something serious and holy" according to the man who as far as I can tell invented the term, Jon Acuff.

I'm sure we have all been there, everyone is having a harmless laugh and it comes to a screeching halt becomes someone feels the need to show how spiritual and religious they are while simultaneously condemning everyone around them as heathens. To be clear, there is a large difference between people pulling a Jesus Juke and people rebuking their brother or sister in Christ.

Anyway, my brother's situation was essentially that he was jokingly seeking revenge on his smoker neighbors. He offered his own idea of capturing farts in jars and unleashing them on his neighbors and was planning to ask for other clever suggestions for retribution which he had no intention of using. However he thought he would be opening himself up to a Jesus Juke and therefore decided against it. You can read all about it here.

The point is, I thought my four regular blog readers (you know who you are) might be interested in my take on the whole concept of Jesus Juking. Here is the comment I posted on my brother's blog:

I think the problem with the Jesus Juke is that it completely disregards the concept of humor. What does humor have to do with Christianity you say? Well, besides the fact that you can see God's sense of humor throughout your own life and history and the Bible (I'm not going to look up verses, just trust me, its there and its funny), God created us with a sense of humor. I believe firmly that the "image of God" we were created in involves not a physical image but rather our souls and reason and traits like the ability to love and laugh. If we were not made to have a sense of humor, I believe God would have not given us the ability to laugh.

That being said, had someone Jesus juked my brother for his humorous comment about farting in a jar, I may have felt the need to take a hot, steaming deuce on their front step. Not very Jesus like you say? Well I was just trying to let that person know that I didn't think the judgemental attitude they had about my brothers' smokers solution which led to their Jesus Juke was not the spirit of humility that God calls them to as Christians. I may not have done it in the right way . . . but then again, the Jesus Juker doesn't do it the right way either right?

The reason I can confidently say that the intent of Jesus Juking is as well-meaning as me pooping on someone's doorstep is because if you ever have had to rebuke someone in the love of Jesus, you almost always dread doing it. There is no joy in calling to correction the mistakes of a brother or sister in Christ, and it is not done in a public forum because all you want from that situation is for your brother or sister to grow closer with God, you have no interest in their humiliation. Jesus Juking is none of those things, it is an attempt to publicly shame those who we feel are not living up to the standard of what we think they should be, not of what God thinks they should be.

Jesus Jukers will deny my statement until the end, claiming they were trying to do the right thing. When they do that, just remember, I successfully defended the idea of me crapping on someones doorstep with the simple statement of it was well intentioned just poorly executed. But if this were really true, wouldn't they stop executing their good intentions in the form of a Jesus Juke? So next time you feel like Jesus Juking someone, think of it as taking a verbal dump on that person's metaphorical door step, and see if you still think its a good idea (Hint: its not). Sorry Raj, didn't meant to hijack the blog. Love you brother.

Any thoughts?

The Bad Kind of Spooning

When I was young my parents had assigned each of their children (me and my three older siblings) certain chores which needed to be done on a regular basis. In all honesty unless we had company coming over in the near future, and by near future I mean within a day or so, most of the chores were neglected. However there was one thing that got done in a fairly consistent manner and that was putting away the dishes. We were each responsible for a certain section of the kitchen where things were to be put away. As the youngest and therefore the shortest at the time, I was in charge of making sure the silverware made it into the correct spots in the silverware drawer, this was by far the easiest job but for some reason I still hated it. Despite the fact that putting away the silverware was really the only chore I had to complete pretty much ever I remember being in a terrible mood every time I was asked to do it. I remember trying to hold out for as long as I could so that most of the clean silverware would be used by the time I got around to putting them away so that I wouldn't have as much work to do . . . Ya know, because those five extra forks I didn't have to put away were really making a difference.

Still, despite the ease and infrequent demands of my chores, I felt as though I needed a way to pay my vengeance on my family for making me endure such horrible hardships. I don't remember how old I was when I finally developed my plan for revenge, but I'm certain that I was old enough to know better. It occurred to me one day that one of the most aggravating things you can do to someone was lick a piece of food before they got a chance to eat it. So I thought to myself, wouldn't licking the utensils they use to eat that food be just as bad if not worse than licking the food itself? And so it was settled, anytime I was upset at my family for any reason, everyone got their silverware licked before I put it in the drawer. I'm not sure how exactly I came to this decision, but I clearly remember only licking the spoons, I really have no idea why but I bet there was something brilliant behind it.

Perhaps the best part about all of this is that I learned at some point later on that my brother is an enormous germ-a-phobe. Apparently my family punishment was harshest on him. The ironic thing is, no one ever knew that I was doing this. I would go about licking every single spoon that came through the dish washer, and no one was the wiser. It wasn't until last Thanksgiving that I told any of my family members about my old spooning routine, yet somehow I found it to be an oddly satisfying way of getting back at my family for any wrongs I felt they had perpetuated against me. I guess it is kind of like when a chef spits in a rude customer's meal and they eat the whole thing without a clue, the chef is nonetheless happy with his form of justice. I wouldn't go so far as to call my little spooning trick justice, I mean after all my family really didn't do anything to me except ask me to do an incredibly easy chore about twice a week.

Anyway, I know its a little late, but I'd like to apologize my family for subjecting them to the bad kind of spooning, but I must say, all of that spoon looking may have paid off. I mean, I don't have to put away silverware anymore . . . I'm gonna count that as a win.