As Stephen noted, this whole fiscal mess is our fault.

So, of course, we’re gonna use another rocket scientist to fix it. [No really ... Kashkari worked for NASA before going to get his MBA.]

What freaks me out is that this guy would’ve finished his engineering degree about the time I started on mine. I have a bunch of friends from my freshman year of college who are 35 this year. :boggle:

Thirty! | Day #1

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I’m thirty today. I’m excited, can’t you tell?

I’m also joining Mike and Rae in a 365-day photo pool called “Hacks and Cameras”, which I fit on both accounts. Whether be with my DSLR, my iPhone, or Photo Booth, I hope to shoot something every day of my 31st year on Earth. You can follow the pool or 30+N/365 set.

Thanks to all who have called, emailed, and the like to send their regards. It’s been a good day after a number of really bad ones in a row.

You can watch some of the cringeworthy interviews that Sarah Palin has been giving and think one of two things, I believe:

• She is the idiot that some believe that she is, and she’s parroting these talking points without really understanding them. The old joke about Rudy Giuliani’s profile of “noun, verb, 9/11″ comes to mind, although Giuliani is, from what I can tell, a reasonably intelligent man. [A reasonably intelligent man who seems to be a raging asshole with poor judgments of character, but intelligent nonetheless.]
• She is a näif thrown to the wolves, and she’s been given these talking points as a rope to pull her out of the depths of her ignorance. And not ignorance in a bad sense—a mayor and a governor has to be focused on their local issues. There was talk prior to 2006, when a Democrat won the lieutenant governorship in Alabama and made the point moot, that my governor, Bob Riley, might be a good VP runningmate this time around. Bob’s like your kindly grandpa or great uncle, or maybe that nice old man at church. He’s nice, he’s safe. But I bet that, if you pushed Bob on Israel and the Wall Street meltdown and all that, he’d be iffy, too. Same for Bobby Jindal or Tim Pawlenty. These guys know the issues in their state and region, but rarely, if ever, do they have to think beyond that. And as an Alabamian, I’m glad that Bob Riley is focused on the issues of Alabama and isn’t expounding on American foreign policy every day [although, as a former Congresscritter, he's had to think about these things in the past].

The former gives Palin little benefit of the doubt; the latter levies the greater blame at the people who picked an unready VP. For the many who want to decry Obama’s lack of experience, I respond thusly: yes, he’s inexperienced, but he’s had 19 months on the campaign trail, talking with reporters, advisors, and voters about these issues. He’s had time to think it through, internalize it, and understand the issues at some level. He’s not as experienced as McCain or Biden; few are. But Obama’s had a long, long time to think all this stuff through, and as a lawyer, he’s got the background to have critically thought through the points.

In contrast, Palin has had about five weeks to figure this out. All signs indicate that she was a late pick and had considered herself out of the running—and she was busy governing her state in the meantime. She had other things going. And now, here at the end, she’s having to play catch-up. Even if she were as sharp as Bill Clinton, that would not be much time to have internalized everything.

Palin’s candidacy feels rushed, thrown-together. I would argue that these are not times where the American people can be rushed—and with nine of the 46 VPs becoming President, and McCain set to be the oldest man elected to the office … isn’t that just a little bit scary?

[Honestly, I think the truth is somewhere between the two points I laid out up above, but I was using that for framing purposes.]

Larry Lessig lays out more reasons I wouldn’t want Palin in the VP spot … now. Maybe later, though! [Note: I am also the person who said in 2006 that Barack Obama shouldn't run this year, so ... there's that.]

[Hubbs, Lessig just outshone your work.]

Tomorrow night, I’ll have a roommate again. It’s good timing, too, because I’m going out of town on Monday to Houston for three days and two nights. [That's sarcasm. I really feel bad about leaving the new guy here by himself less than 24 hours after he arrives in town, but ... it can't be helped.]

I’ve lived with a lot of people not related to me in my life. To wit:

1. Drake, my first MSMS roommate, for about six weeks junior year before we realized that we were never going to study if we lived together.
2. Thomas, my roommate for the remainder of my junior year. Nice guy, turned me on to country music. [It was that or kill him. I'm not homocidal.]
3. Jason, my roommate for my senior year. Probably the roommate I’d most like to live with again, just because he was a fun guy and we meshed nearly perfectly. [This is not a slight against any of my other roommates.]
4. Justin,
5. Hurshidjon,
6. … and Satan-boy my freshman year at UAH. Seriously … can’t remember Satan-boy’s real name. That’s all any of us really called him. He was cooking up GHB—he said for gym reasons—in our room. I could never catch him, but … whatever. He lived on the other side of the suite, Justin’s side, and when Justin was booted from school early on, there was just never any conflict. I lived and let live, man.
7. Josh,
8. Brad,
9. and Chris my sophomore year at UAH. That was definitely my best roommate set of any of my on-campus roommate sets. [I know, I just said that I'd like to live with Jason again. I like multiple roommates.] Chris was a bit weird, but … he was an art major. The only awkwardness with him came to two incidents: sewing his Rocky Horror Picture Show costume in our common area, and the time I walked into our wing of the suite to see him and another guy standing next to a girl clearly fresh out of the shower. After a few seconds, I ascertained that it was an art project [she'd been a nude model for some plaster castings, I'd come to learn later], but all I could think of at the time was, “Nice towel.”
10. PJ …
11. and Kris. Suffice it to say that the former got me my current job, for which I’m eternally grateful, and the latter married a girl I’d once had a thing for. And had me in the wedding party. Good times. When PJ moved out of that apartment situation, he bought the townhouse in which I presently live.
12. Jared, after I’d lived alone for four months after moving into the first apartment with my actual lease on the name. [I rented that apartment on 31 Dec 1999, half-jokingly telling myself as I wrote the check that I might never live in it.] We lived together for 14 months. I’m surprised that they didn’t just nuke the apartment when we were done with it.
13. Todd
14. and Blake, in the second iteration of Club Todder. That was a very fun apartment situation. Of all my apartment living situations, that’s the one I liked the best. 9/11 happened during that year. Todd was just out of school, and I was all but done. We were in the prime of our lives. It was a great time.
15. Anthony …
16. … and Jackie in Club Todder: Country Edition. [Todd and Blake were also there at some period of time.] Okay, so I didn’t actually live with them, because I lived in the garage, but they were both out there at one point or another. I really shouldn’t count Jackie, because I’ve never really lived with him, but … it’s my list, and poop on your shoe if you don’t like it.
17. Leonard with Anthony after we left Club Todder. Anthony moved out …
18. … and Randy moved in. Then Leonard moved out and moved back in within about a ten-day period, and that meant …
19. … Michele moved in with us. Yeah, three guys and a girl in one apartment. After a while, Randy bailed on us, and it went back to just the three of us.
20. Ande after a few months of living here by myself after I bought the house.
21. J, starting tomorrow.

That’s a long list, longer than most folks I know that don’t live in a major city. I’ve lived outside of my parents’ home almost full-time since August 1995, at two educational institutions, in four apartments, in one rental house, and in one house I owned. I skipped only one roommate in there—I lived with my brother for two months after high school but before college. That was … not a good time for us to live together. I think now would be a lot different.

I’ve been blessed to have, on the balance, a very good set of roommates. My soon-to-be roommate is a law-school friend of a high-school friend of mine who’ll be here very short-term. I rather expect that he’ll never get another mention here. I just … want to remember.

Every year around the time of the Andrew Peterson Christmas show, I go back and read what I wrote about meeting Derek Webb for the first time at the 2002 show and have a laugh. I’ll take you right to the punchline:

But the concept was just mind-boggling: here is a man who has made an influence on my life–stronger than he might ever imagine, stronger than I’d probably ever realize myself–and he recognizes me. What a freakish thing.

I still can’t quite believe it.

I’ll meet Derek again. We might never be anything more than acquaintances, but for that one moment … yeah.

Well, uh, I think we’ve moved past the acquaintance stage now.

I emailed this to Bryan today for his amusement, and here’s his response:

haha. wow, funny to read that. i’m so happy i know what Fido’s is…and its funny to hear you talk about the rumor board in an unattached way…and its funny to wonder if you and derek will ever be more than acquaintances, seeing as how you are in his liner notes and slept in his house. hilarious.

Of course, Bryan knows what Fido’s is only because we hit Fido’s with Derek back in October, before going over to his house later to partake of his gracious hospitality in providing crashspace for us on the trip. [DW, you rule.] I will keep most of my fanboy moments to myself, but you can imagine the variations on the one I had as I was going to sleep: “I’m about to sleep on Derek Webb’s couch!”

I also emailed this to Andrew Osenga, in response to his story about getting a mixtape from Matthew Smith back in college when Matthew was trying to get him to give Caedmon’s Call a serious listen.

I turned it over and read down the list of songs. Waterdeep. Caedmon’s Call. Derek Webb. Vigilantes of Love. Bebo Norman. This was familiar. It was hazy, but it started coming back bit by bit. Some guy from my dorm floor made me this tape because I always ragged on the music he liked. Especially Caedmon’s. Though I’d never really heard them I had decided I didn’t like them. Probably because I had an ex-girlfriend who really did. And they played folk music and I liked atmospheric rock. So this guy made me the tape to try and convert me.

“Who would have done that?” [ ... ] Then it hit me. This tape was the handiwork of Matthew Smith. The very Matthew Smith whose house I had just come from. When he made that tape for me we were single guys living across the hall from each other in a freshman dorm. Last night our wives were holding our newborn babies. I’ve heard all those Caedmon’s songs now. Just about every night for the past four years. So crazy how things change and how unexpected and wonderful some of those changes can be.

So, when I emailed Andrew, he came back with this:

dude. do you know who opened that show in huntsville? the normals. it was the first time we ever met them, and that was the first cc show I ever saw. And Mike played an extra trash can on thankful.

Okay, this is now officially weird and hilarious. I’m laughing really hard because I remember thinking, “Who the heck are The Normals?!” It didn’t matter, though, because I made that trip with my old church kids and barely got there in time to see CC-minus-the-Youngs.

All I know is that I’m really shaking my head a lot about this shared set of experiences now. That, and I’m now pissed that I’m realizing that I could have seen The Normals. But mainly that makes me mad at Forefront. Grrrrr.

Okay, so I look at my pathetic progress on my 2006 New Year’s Resolutions and weep. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t do something about it.

What am I doing? Well, after reading that weekday TV and video gaming seems to lower students’ educational endeavors, I got to thinking: what do I do at night when I get home from work? Well, I usually sit down, watch ABC World News Tonight, then sit down to scarf down whatever my TiVos have recorded for me. That sucking sound you hear is any chance that I will get much done going out the window.

Now, I get a fair amount done at night on the things I choose to work on, but the things that I choose to work on are not really the things that I’d value—reading more, especially my Bible in preparation for teaching Sunday school classes, maybe a little programming, Web work, etc. Instead, I half-watch TV while I piddle aimlessly on the Internet. It’s … bad.

So, I’ve decided that, for the month of October, I’ll timeshift all my non-news TV watching to the weekend, when I really don’t have much concern in the way of goofing off. That’ll add a few hours each night not spent wondering what TiVo has for me and maybe I’ll, you know, clean my office, or work on some bookcases, or any of the number of reasonable projects I could knock out…

The other day, Adriene accused me of drinking a lot. We compared notes, and she realized that I talk about alcohol way more than I drink it. [My drinking days are largely left as hazy college memories. Ahhh ... good times.] I haven’t had a beer since I was in Portland a couple weeks ago, and that was a pretty rare occasion. Every third or fourth Tuesday, I’ll get really hacked at something going on with work and pick up a six- or 12-pack of Yuengling on my way to The Granades’, where it largely is consumed by people not named me. [I won't point any fingers, but his name starts with a pirate's favorite letter and ends in ick. ]

But tonight, the Granades, Kings, and Creekmores, May anniversaries all, went out for dinner, so I was unable to crack open a beer while watching Veronica Mars. Instead, I came home, talked to the folks, puttered around a while, went and got dinner around nine, and came home to fix the foofiest thing I’ve had since I made Impeachement Punch back in college: a glass of OJ with a healthy shot of peach schnapps.

No, tonight was not a whiskey night, despite having a good bottle of Jameson in the house.

You may find yourself asking, What was in Impeachment Punch? Good question. Anthony and I devised it while sitting in the student section at a hockey game one night…

• One part amaretto
• Two parts peach schnapps
• One part peppermint schnapps
• One part sour mix
• Four parts orange juice

If feeling particularly evil, add:

• Three parts vodka
• One part triple sec

Mixed well, the first part of Impeachment Punch tastes largely like orange juice [although slightly minty and slightly cherry]; when throwing a never-to-be-forgotten party at Club Todder—ahhh, the mere mention of that phrase brings back memories—I joked about treating it like a screwdriver. Todd wordlessly handed me the vodka and waited for me to pour in a liberal amount before handing me the triple sec. We just laughed. The girls? They loved it.

[I think the funniest part of that night was the next morning, putting on my T-shirt before getting up to work on cleaning up the house. My white T-shirt reeked of beer. I was confused, because I didn't spill a drop. I then realized why: I had sweated the aromatics out.]

Right now, my parents are reading this and thinking: “Wow, we’re glad he didn’t write about this much in college. We would have been very worried.”

Right now, Todd is reading this and thinking, “That drink is pussy!”

Right now, Anthony, the One-Beer Wonderboy, is no longer reading this, having passed out at the mere mention of Impeachment Punch. Lightweight.

I think that I can be hard to get to know in situations where I’m not physically present with you. I think that there are two reasons for this:

1. Online, I can spew content far more often. Why? I don’t have to shut up and listen and have stop-start conversations.
2. I rarely, if ever, start one-to-one conversations. I’ll talk to you all day long if you start them and keep them going, but … I just rarely start them. If I do start a conversation with you, it’s because I really enjoy your company and value you, or I want to get to know you better.

One of the symptoms of this disease is this concept in my head that I can only “know” so many people at one time, which is a bit of thought that actually has some neurological and psychological bases to it. [Most researchers of such things would argue that we really only "know" and can keep up with 150 people at a time. I have thoughts about how the connectors that Malcolm Gladwell discusses in The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference are simply people who just remember key facts about people outside that 150, but ... another day, perhaps. Probably best after I have a conversation with Dr. Granade about that.]

But anyhow … it always amuses me when someone “new” comes into my sphere, someone I strike a connection with for whatever reason. Without hard facts to back it up, I’d say that this happens more often with women than men, but usually with married women whose relationships I highly admire [take a bow, Kari], so it’s not a picking-up-women thing per se [although it has been and probably will be again, heh].

I’ve said all that to say that I’ve really enjoyed interacting with Heather Green the last few days. I enjoy her wit and wisdom, her writing is fun, and she and Jeff are just great. Plus, she’s keeping me sane in crazy times, and that … that is always a bonus.

Dangit, I’ve been tagged by Spencer for one of these foofy meme things. This time, the theme is books, which is something I don’t have a handle on nearly as well as I might, say, my music collection. [No worries: once I finish moving into the house, I have a cataloging task ready that's roughly analogous to The Great CD Preservation Project. Details on that at a later date---as if you care, or something.]

Total Number of Books I Own: Like Spencer, I have no count on this. Once I’ve catalogued my library, I’ll know. I’m guessing on the order of … 500. I honestly have no idea.

Last Book I Bought: For me, it’s two books purchased from Amazon, one of which I mentioned as I bought it:

Books I’m Reading Now: The aforementioned two books are what’s riding around in my backpack right now. I’ve worked ~55 pp. into Flow, and I haven’t cracked Code open yet. Sometimes, I read multiple books at once. And actually, now that I think about it, I’m going through Garrison Keillor’s We Are Still Married: Stories and Letters from time to time. It’s a collection of short stories, which fits my reading habits. My reading habits very, very much skew non-fiction these days.

Books That Have Been Important To Me:

• The Bible. I’ve read and owned an NIV traslation, but lately, I’ve been loving the NRSV.
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. The thing I love about this book, viewed dispassionately? It has to be how Christians of most every denomination and doctrinal leaning claim it for their own.
• Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. I just dig it—I’m an instinctual decision-maker, but I also ruminate over lots of things. It works for me, and it drives other people crazy—but Gladwell’s book made me feel not-so-crazy.

It’s kinda sad that my list of influential books is so brief. I’m sure there’s something huge that I’m missing, but honestly, I don’t have many huge “Ah-ha!” moments when reading books. Most of what I read is not in long form, for better or worse, these days, and I only gained an appreciation for literature late in my high school years.

But there is a quote from Sir Francis Bacon that I dearly love about writing; I’ve forgotten its source, but I reckon I could find it: “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” I wholeheartedly agree.

Five People I’ll Torture by Passing This on to Them:

• John Wilson.
• Amy.
• Kari, my favorite librarian … who will either love this or hate it. I’m hoping love, because I’m still gunning for an invite to Mike’s birthday party. [Hee.] Read Kari’s responses.
• Lara.
• Andy Osenga. [Okay, so this is a cheap excuse to get Andy to read GFMorris.com.]

If I write one of those really foofy “My Year In Review” type entries, please beat me.

Repeatedly.

With reckless abandon.

Okay?

Okay.

[Unless you want to read that, of course, in which case I'd be happy to oblige.]

Whilst taking an asinine Webquiz:

“Your friends would describe you as:

* level-headed and easy-going.
* calculating and rational.
* sensitive and caring.”

Where is the radio button for “none of the above”? [I picked sensitive and caring, but my friends would want "on the knife edge of sanity", probably.]

Pay up, John!

I am so dead …

Wearing Birks turns you into a hippy, granola-eating freak?

Say it ain’t so?

Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking of going to seminary at Vandy …

But in 2002, on this date, I had the flu.

Today, I have a raging sinus infection.

Strange.