I was sitting next to a gentleman on the plane between Salt Lake City and Denver last week as he rambled on about hedge funds and paperwork to his business partner. I was very road weary (and perhaps a bit hungover) from the evening before. It was a business trip with two other co-workers for a tech company out there. A new project always brings with it a sense of hope and excitement, but this one took it to the next level. But sitting next to the window on a very crowded flight with a guy who would shut up about his ex wives (yes, plural) and the supposed ineptitude of his female staff was more than a bit draining. I wanted desperately to nap, as ours was the first flight out of Salt Lake City.

I pulled out my phone and began reading the cached tweets that I had downloaded just prior to takeoff. Particularly when on a hectic travel schedule, Twitter is the last thing I think to check, and not having Internet for the short flight meant that I wanted to at least grab a snapshot of what everyone was talking about. As usual, most of it was fluff and re-tweeting celebrities. No offense to those I follow on Twitter, but I felt a bit let down. In the middle of all of that were headlines about the proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Rewind to the afternoon before. We were walking around downtown Salt Lake City on Temple Square. This area is home to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly referred to as the Mormons. Having grown up in rural west Tennessee, I do not recall having ever met a Mormon. At least, if they were Mormon, they certainly did not advertise it. I do not even recall meeting any devout Catholics until moving to Nashville. Faith in small-town America is as deep as it is illogical at times. Even the protestant denominations have their own backbiting against one another, barely acknowledging their common bonds while focusing on their differences. Where you spent that hour on Sunday morning was important to the fate of your eternal soul, which is why I spent most of those hours in bed after leaving the region. I wanted to make sure my soul was well-rested.

Downtown Salt Lake City is a beautiful area, even if I felt a little uneasy walking through the quasi-Vatican of a faith that is not my own. I was a certainly a stranger in a strange land, as young men and women with missionary name badges walked around the walled courtyard. We tried our best to keep any political incorrectness to ourselves. After all, we were guests and our humor was lighthearted. These men and women deserve to practice their faith in any way they see fit, and it only serves to broaden the greatness of their city.

A few people in Murfreesboro, Tennessee see things a bit differently. From The Tennessean

Collier Hopson drove his pickup to the vigil. In the back was a plywood sign bearing the spray-painted words “No Mosque.”

He said that local Christians have a right to build churches. But mosques should be banned, he said.

“I don’t support their beliefs,” he said. “ No one wants them here.”

Standing in front of the pickup, Kimberly Kelly agreed. She said she is afraid of Muslims and that the violence from Iraq and other countries could come to Murfreesboro.

She said if the fire at the mosque site was arson as many suspect, Muslims deserved it.

“I think it was a piece of their own medicine,” she said. “They bombed our country.”

I read that last quote at least five times, hoping that with each reading I could find a different interpretation of Ms. Kelly’s words. But I am not naive enough to find the best in everything, and I know that she meant it exactly as it sounds. An entire faith with more than 1.5 billion followers was responsible for what can only be assumed to be the events of September 11, 2001. And because of that, somebody was perfectly justified in committing arson to intimidate them.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Ms. Kelly and Mr. Hopson are good people. I do not seek to discredit them personally. But what I will say is that the level of ignorance and its close cousin intolerance that both of these individuals spewed off to the newspaper reporter is breathtaking. Perhaps there is something in their past that at least rationalizes their sentiments, but I doubt it. I begin to wonder if either of these two Tennesseans ever really grasped the whole “Love Thy Neighbor” thing. Perhaps their church had a few asterisks next to that one in the Holy Bible to exempt them from loving their Muslim neighbors. I have looked — mine does not.

Do either of these people ever talk to anyone that has a faith other than their own? What would happen if it came up in conversation? Would they snap out of their southern hospitality — something I would much rather rural Tennessee be known for than bigotry — and start shouting and cursing? Would they do that to a woman and her children? How can anyone maintain that level of hatred towards the person who may live next door? I certainly do not have answers to any of those, but a man from Galilee had an easy one. He said, simply, to love thy neighbor. And for those that proclaim to follow him, they do not get the luxury of appending exceptions to that rule.

We live in a free country, and that means men and women risk their lives each and every day protecting the rights of Kimberly Kelly and Collier Hopson to say and feel how they will about their neighbors down in Murfreesboro. And I believe strongly in their right to say it, even though I could not disagree more with their sentiments. But our laws and our conscience do not protect the cowards who would destroy property and intimidate people in order to force their beliefs upon them, or chase them out of their city. They are becoming the very monsters that they believe that they are trying to keep out of Murfreesboro, and I say a small prayer that they arrive to that conclusion very soon. I fear that we may soon hear of further violence from our neighbors to the south, perpetrated in the name of a man who spoke peace and against a people who mean no harm.

No matter how many times we are featured on The Daily Show, this could quickly become no laughing matter.

Those playing at home might remember that Samantha and I’s trip to Chicago last fall was the first time I had ever flown. This trip has a layover in Denver for both the outbound and returning flights, so I will effectively double my number of flights on a single round-trip. As I have said before, I have no fear of flying — life just never mandated that I use air travel as a means to get to where I needed to go. I have often wondered if I really enjoy traveling, or if it is just a reaction to my perpetual restlessness. Long car rides usually mean naps, and I certainly do not take a lot of pleasure in driving. All the same, this will be the first time in a rather long time that I am crossing the state border, and it will be the furthest west I have been since two very long car trips to New Mexico back when I was in elementary school.

What I am looking forward to the most is slightly cooler weather, and way less humidity. I will pretend that the Tennessee August will somehow transition to Tennessee Fall by the time I get back in a few days.

An East Nashville co-worker suggested a simple flow chart to answer the question, “When is the Tomato Art Fest“. It only needed two paths to answer the question, “Is it the hottest weekend of the year?” If the answer was no, it was obviously not time for the Tomato Art Fest. It comes as no surprise that the moment I stepped out the door this morning for the festival’s 5K road race that I instantly broke a sweat.

I drove my car a street a few blocks from the starting line, a point bemoaned by my wife and her friends. Sure, we live a little over a mile and it would have been an easy walk in anything other than this oppressive heat. Even if I had braved it, the “getting home” part would have sucked after the race was over. I also needed the car as a place to leave my wallet and keys, as I do not think the post office would appreciate it very much if I used my PO box as a locker.

I searched around for the registration table, finding it right next to the starting line. When I picked up my packet, I noticed that Samantha’s name was still on the list, and that her bib had been printed. We had arranged for a friend of ours from college to take over her number, but it apparently was too late to get the name (and gender) changed on the registration. I went on, but I was already fairly sure what was about to happen.

The mayor was the grand marshal for the race, announcing “I’ll give you guys the same advice I use for myself: start the race slow, and finish slower.” I joked to myself if this was also his campaign strategy when the convention center opponents go to the polls next summer. We were off, and I set into my usual race strategy — keep pace with the “casual runners” until I need to let up a bit. That lasted for about a half mile for this one, as we started hitting the more hilly areas of the East Park area, and realizing that some of the crowd I had been running with had trained quite a bit more than I had. The East Nasty runners group was out in full force, so I tried to avoid setting any benchmarks that I knew I could not hit. Seeing one of their shirts usually indicated such a benchmark.

As we rounded 6th Street to head back towards Five Points, my one mile time came in at 12:37 (if the time keeper was to be believed). If I could have that pace for all three miles, I would be a lot happier with how I do in 5Ks. My goal is to consistently get below 40 minutes, and then pick a target that will probably not go any lower than 35-36 minutes. My 200-pound body is a bit tough to lug around, even with long legs.

Around the halfway point in the race when the course goes by Sky Blue Cafe (the owner goes to our church), the smell of bacon from breakfast wafted out into the street. I think I would have put up a sign that said “Too hot to run? Come inside for BACON!” She probably would have had at least a dozen or so folks take her up on the offer.

As we made the final series of turns to go back towards Five Points (after running through a sprinkler that one of the homeowners along Fatherland has mercifully pointed over the sidewalk), I encountered the unexpected. There, standing along the street was a woman in a red apron with a pan and a pair of tongs. She simply said “Bacon?” This mystical woman was offering that very thing I had craved 10 minutes earlier. My first thought was that I was hallucinating, and that I had actually fallen over in a ditch somewhere along the course. I took the piece of bacon, thanking the Bacon Lady and ran on. She continued to offer it to other runners, so I at least have other witnesses that can verify my story.

Bacon was a bad choice, by the way. My stomach, already jostled from two bottles of water and two miles of running, did not react well at all to the sudden influx of greasy goodness. It tasted great though, so I cannot say that I necessarily have any regrets. Another couple was talking across the street ahead to their neighbor about inviting them over for Bloody Marys. One runner stopped and said “Bloody Marys? What house number is this?” The unamused guy said “You’re on Russell Street.”

We were on Woodland.

I tried my best to run the last few blocks, making that the toughest fifth of a mile I think I have ever tackled. Nothing — lungs, back, legs, feet — on my body wanted to do that. I plodded across the finish line, watched my run tracking app crash and did some quick math. I came in at 43:33 according to my phone, but my chip put me in at 42:52, certainly not my best performance of the year, but not too far off pace from my other races.

We do not have any other races scheduled for the fall yet, but I am certainly looking forward to the cooler weather.

This afternoon I finally set foot in the Municipal Auditorium, something I had managed to avoid doing in the entire time I have lived in middle Tennessee. The Bridgestone Arena (and its half dozen or so other names) opened three years before I got to Nashville in 1999, so every downtown sporting event or concert I had ever attended had been at that venue. One look inside and you can quickly tell why the city was well-advised to build a new one. At a 9,700 maximum capacity, it is half the size of Bridgestone (19,395 for basketball) but not quite double the size of Jackson, Tennessee’s Oman Arena (5,600), the closest municipal performance space to my old home town. Even UT Martin’s own Kathleen & Tom Elam Center/Skyhawk Arena boasts 7,000 seats. We have been conditioned to think that anything booked at Municipal either ran into a scheduling conflict for the Arena, or the promoters knew they did not have a prayer of filling the seats. Unless they are Creed‘s promoters — in which case, they were delusional to think anyone would pay to hear that crap anyway.

That sets the stage for tonight’s event, a bout between the Nashville Rollergirls and the Fort Wayne Derby Girls. Roller derby as a sport has witnessed a resurgence in popularity in recent years, but still operates largely under the radar of most casual sports fans. They had played for a few years at the Fairgrounds pavilion, but with the political turmoil surrounding the closing of that facility, the team moved to Municipal. Oddly enough, moving to a larger and more centralized venue meant larger attendance (they easily sold out bouts at the fairgrounds, but had 2,384 strong show up last month). Some longtime fans bemoan the fact that it seems like things are going more “mainstream” (think family friendly, but they still played an explicit mash-up featuring “99 Problems” during intermission), but I really had nothing to base it off of. The nicknames are still hilarious.

Had it not been for a co-worker’s photography project and seeing that a few other colleagues from the Nashville interactive community (my fancy way of saying “the ladies from Nashvillest” and friends) were going tonight, I probably would have skipped out of tonight’s event. I am a hockey fan, but I wagered that anything that involved skates, brutal hip checks and the occasional scrap sounded like it would tide me over until the pre-season started next month. The fact that it involves women in fishnets is just an added bonus (Side note: I tried to get Samantha to come to this one, but she needed to catch up on a few projects with tight deadlines). The team is currently nationally ranked, so it also came with the notion that I could watch a team that might have a shot at winning it all.

Even having watched tonight’s doubleheader, I still have little idea of how things were actually scored. I did figure out when something happened that was worth cheering (like the girl with the star on her helmet, called a “Jammer”, passes everyone else) or was bad news (like when the same girl is tossed in the penalty box). The strategy of the game slowly became apparent, but I do not quite think I will be rushing out to get a version for the Wii anytime soon. It comes as no surprise that it is a rough sport — I saw at least two rough lower-body injures (knees and ankles) and a skate loose its front set of wheels. One injury even happened during warm-up drills. Even with my limited understanding, I at least could do simple math — both Nashville teams ended their games with more points than their opponents.

The Nashville Rollergirls wrap their season at an away game, so it will be several months before I get the next opportunity to go watch a bout. In the mean time, I will simply laugh a bit at the players’ and coaches’ nicknames.

The heat index has soared into the triple digits this week. It reminded me that I called our 90-degree days in mid-June “oppressively hot” when I should have known better. After reading the reports that high school football players were forbidden from practicing outdoors while there are heat advisories, I realized that my aspirations of going for a run after work would be ill-advised. Those guys are healthier than I ever was or likely ever will be, so there is no sense in me tempting fate.

Today my co-workers and I had lunch at the Nashville Farmer’s Market to celebrate their partial reopening. The dining selection was scarce (a pick between Indian and barbecue), but I had really missed the large dining area and close proximity. A reporter from WKRN was walking around with a camera, so I was certain we were about to be featured in B-Roll footage for a story. After sitting down, he came up and introduced himself and asked if he could talk to us about the market reopening. I could never be rude to a reporter just trying to do his job, so I obliged for an interview. You can read the other quotes from the story on their site.

I managed to plug both the name of my employer and my favorite burrito stand. I think I can call that a fairly productive day.

The Nashville Farmer’s Market “Market House” food court was wiped out by by the May floods. This week (if the inspections go well), it will re-open with most of merchants returning. I probably ate there once or twice each week September through April, as it is a leisurely walk from the office. The prices are relatively inexpensive, and its close proximity meant that we could save on gas and still get a breather from the hectic days. One particular vendor, “El Burrito Mexicano” (quite possibly the most generic name for a restaurant I have ever heard) has a special place in the hearts of my coworkers and I. Specifically, that place in our heart is the coronary artery where the cholesterol from their “big as your head burritos” is building up. But they are so delicious.

I have not had more fun in a career than I am having at work right now, but it is also simultaneously the most stress and pressure that I have ever experienced. The fact that a burrito stand in a building decimated by near-biblical flood waters could perhaps re-open this week means more to me than I expect anyone to understand.

We are about a week away from the start of August. With it brings the county elections and the statewide primaries. I would say that I have voter fatigue, but I have paid so little attention to all of it that I am genuinely still curious about it. Some of the candidates have mostly been sideshow-entertaining (thinking of “End Universal Jihad!” billboards, embarrassing interviews on WSMV and the one with the incredulous fly-in-fly-out Sarah Palin endorsement). Other have been even more ridiculous (“Giving Washington the Boot”, “Meet ‘em at the state line” and “I hope we don’t have to secede”). National pundits are certainly getting a laugh at Tennessee’s expense, but it is a position that we have grown accustomed to — reinforcing every hillbilly, backwoods stereotype known to man. I could tell anyone from the east coast that our Governor must wear a coonskin cap while giving his “State of the State” address, and nobody would bat an eyelid.

August also brings the start of football season and the beginning of training camp for the Nashville Predators — I will let you guess which one I’m a bit happier about. Despite playing an 82-game season between October and early June, even the short months in between seem to drag on. It is too early to get much of a sense of whether the team will be a contender this year, but shoring up the ownership “situation” and making a couple of other strategic moves certainly sounds like a better start than a few years ago when I was contemplating whether the team would even be around at this point.

My wife’s birthday is in three weeks. Suggestions. Go!

While the morning commute features school zones, the evening trip home has its own notable traits. I drive down to 2nd Avenue and loop around under the Jefferson Street Bridge rather than waiting for a small eternity on the light at the corner of 4th Ave. Underneath the bridge, there is usually a large gathering of people. For the first few months on this daily commute (after I learned to avoid the stoplight), I was not sure exactly what was going on there. After seeing a few church vans and a truck from the Salvation Army, I have reached the conclusion that dinner is being served to the homeless. If it were not on my normal route, I would just drive on by on the bridge above.

Today was a bit of a different scene. There were still the same hundred or so people and church vans, but this time there was a makeshift stage set up with a band. I only saw it for a split second as I rushed home from a long day at work, but I was still thinking about it as I pulled into my parking space at home. We fall into our daily ruts, to where large groups of people underneath a bridge do not even enter our consciousness because we see them so often — until there is something different. I am sure the band was there to lift spirits while other volunteers fed those in attendance. Perhaps there is even a chance that the band is there every so often, and I have simply never noticed it before.

Ruts are hard things to break of out. The mental energy required to think about things as simple as what to eat for dinner after work can seem burdensome at times. I am fortunate to be able to make that decision on my own rather than depending on the generosity of others. But more importantly, I am glad that there are people out there who are not afraid to try new approaches — even if the current one is already meeting the visible needs. I can only speculate what it means to have the likely only hot meal of the day augmented by a bit of uplifting musical entertainment. I would wager that it at least made the day a bit brighter.

The Fourth of July holiday saw us missing church services again (our attendance record has nosedived since moving within walking distance), but we did make it to the Hot Chicken Festival for the third year in a row. We have since wised up to the notion that you cannot go to the Hot Chicken Festival with the hope of actually getting any hot chicken (I didn’t want any anyway). Instead, you go for a hot dog and watermelon, then head out before the throng of people flatten you. It is a great neighborhood event though, and a good example of why we love living over here so much.

Sunday evening we went with our friend Alison and her family to dinner. You probably could have taped that the conversation as a classic example of how both genetics and upbringing shape the individual. We shared stories and countless opinions on topics ranging from national security, health care, education, public works, etc. You know, lighthearted dinner conversation. From dinner, it was another walk to East Park to catch the fireworks as downtown Nashville became a cauldron of pyrotechnics and smoke. We were not nearly as close as we had been in years’ past, but the drive home was much faster because of that.

This morning, I got a text asking what to do about dead chickens from Alison. Believe it or not, I am a bit of an expert on the subject. Growing up in a small town meant that we had a very active 4-H program that offered 12-14 year-old boys and girls the opportunity to raise a dozen hens to adulthood, and then sell the top six at auction to put money back into the program. Even the 4-H organizers knew you would probably lose a couple. I am a big fan of birds in general, so I kept the chickens at my grandparents’ house. They had plenty of land (and enough free time and materials to invest in a sizable chicken coop), so I would go over there and tend to heat lamps, water troughs and feeding until they got big enough to eat whatever the geese and ducks were eating. On a few occasions, there would be idiot bird that got its neck caught in the fence, effectively removing itself from the gene pool. On another, the free-roaming chicken became an easy meal for a hawk that spotted it out in the open. Very grisly events, to be sure. But, all part of having chickens as pseudo pets.

I call them pets because my grandfather could sit down on an overturned feed bucket, and a chicken would hop right up into his lap. A rooster or two was added to the mix, so there were several generations of chickens until eight or nine years ago when the last of them died off. Incidentally, the Fourth of July was also my grandfather’s birthday and my grandparents’ anniversary. His brother, my great uncle, died last week. This is always a tough holiday in my family.

But, back to the chickens. Samantha wanted to no part of dealing with dead chickens on her day off, so I grabbed a pair of gloves and headed out. Alison is house sitting for a co-worker who keeps the chickens, and she was firmly convinced that there were multiple homicides overnight. One was missing a head by the fence row, and a tuft of feathers was sticking out of the laying box. I knew how to deal with the one by the fence, but was a bit concerned about what had befallen the supposed victim(s) in the box. I grabbed a shovel and stood back to open the box, making sure whatever had gotten to the first chicken was not still around for another one. Fortunately, the feathers fell out of the box and revealed two, very much alive chickens. One of them had probably gotten its tail feathers caught in the lid. I was somewhat relieved that none of the others were injured or dying, because I was not prepared to deal with that at all.

On now to the now single casualty of the day. Alison was having trouble getting in touch with the homeowner about the proper last rites for the departed chicken. Regardless, it had to be retrieved from the pen (and away from the other traumatized/confused chickens). We got it loaded into a plastic garbage bag and tried to scope out where to put a hole in the ground. A little while later, the homeowner called and assured her that this was not the first time this kind of thing had happened, and that burying it was a bad idea — coyotes tend to enjoy digging it up and making even more of a mess. We doubled up the trash bag and put it into a closed can for them to take care of when they returned.

My first suspicion was that, like the chickens from my youth, this one had gotten caught in the wire and then the assailant had made quick work of the exposed head and neck. Looking at the fence, it became a bit more clear that whatever had grabbed it had its eyes on a veritable feast of chickens, but settled for just part of one when the fence did not open up as much as it wanted. We piled some rocks back over the damaged hole to at least deter the next attempt. If I owned a house and could keep chickens, I would at least entertain the idea. I already have a pretty clear idea of the trials and tribulations of raising chickens.

When I went to the local Mexican restaurant today, I changed my typical order from chicken to steak. I think I’ll wait a while before going back down the poultry route.

I have become more and more frustrated with my own writing because I keep making egregious errors that I only catch after a piece has been published or sent. I went to complain about how my Twitter feed is riddled with errors in a status update, but then had to delete the update because it too had an error. That really drove the point home.

The causes of my errors generally fall into a few categories:

• Rewrite that sentence, but only do it halfway. I write with the intention of revising rather than getting it right the first time. My goal is to hit a rhythm in whatever it is — an e-mail, a blog post, a tweet — and then go back to rearrange and shift things as needed. When I do this, I somehow will skip over very basic things, like making sure subjects and verbs agree, or that I have not left a piece of the former sentence randomly dropped in the middle of a paragraph.
• Careless or lazy typos. This one is the most frustrating, because “I know better” than to confuse its, it’s, there, their, etc. I really, truly, know better. My brain slips, and I just fumble finger through it.
• Hitting “send” prematurely. Perhaps I am in a hurry to finish something up, or cannot give it my full attention. Either way, I send it along without even stopping to read through it. I often read e-mails that I sent in haste and wonder what kind of idiot the recipient thinks I must be.

I joke with anyone who points out one of my errors that I was a college newspaper editor, not a copy editor for a newspaper. The woman who held the dual role of chief copy editor and newspaper adviser to that organization can attest that I often made the same mistakes, and only she had a mental checklist to keep me from embarrassing myself in a column. When writing was the principle function of my job, I was more likely to focus on getting it right the first time. At least, I hope I did.

The truth is, writing is still the principle function of my job. If I were to total the number of words written in e-mails, tweets, search queries or personal notes, I have no doubt that it would equal the total written in an average day from my college years. Writing (and not screwing up in the process) is even more important now, as there is an entire subset of people that have no other means by which to communicate with me.

Even this post likely has a few errors in it. Feel free to light me up in the comments. I need to get a handle on it one way or another.

Today marks the first day of summer, although the weather we have been having for the last month would beg to differ. If the official start of seasons were determined by average temperatures rather than dates on a calendar, we have been in “summer” for quite some time. Sunday we were out in the heat for a project coordinated through Hands on Nashville to help a woman move furniture around her once flood damaged home. It was yet another interesting experience in volunteer work, but I am still satisfied with how I spent the afternoon.

The photo is from a recent performance in East Park by the Nashville Symphony as part of their Community Concert series. It was a great way to unwind after work, even if the whole “unwinding” thing is often a challenge as busy as things are at the office. Even on weekends, it takes a concentrated effort to stop checking e-mail on my phone. Maybe a CD of classical music in the afternoons would do the trick.

Speaking of after-hours things to do, we are planning to check out the “Way Late Play Date” this Thursday at the Adventure Science Center. It is happening right after the bi-monthly mixer at work, so we’ll knock out our work week socializing in one fell swoop. Tickets are $15, or $25 for two. I wonder if they came up with the idea after realizing all of the corporate/civic groups that used their meeting space really just wanted to play around in the museum.

I know I do.

Stephen Yeargin listens to friends, who all met on Twitter, during a weekly meet-up at Nashville's Winners Bar and Grill for some face-to-face conversation. (SANFORD MYERS / THE TENNESSEAN)

[...]

Stephen Yeargin of Nashville has experienced that dichotomy firsthand. His 419 Facebook friends have taught him that “just because you know a lot of information about a person, doesn’t mean you know them.”

From time to time, while talking with new acquaintances, Yeargin, 26, will realize that they’re already “friends” online, and have been chatting electronically for years. “I’ve had situations where people were more fiery in their writing, but then you meet them in real life and they are more reserved,” he said. “They might be really political online, but then when you talk to them, that doesn’t even come up.”

[...]

Here is a link to the full story.

So I have now logged five races in six months, this time at the Music Fest Road Race. I am still hunting for my first sub-40-minute finish in 5Ks this year, but I will take a 40:58 as hot as it was on the course today. As Samantha is quick to remind me, I have little hope of turning in faster times unless I can start fitting in runs during the week. The trouble is that mornings before work are a lost cause (we are lucky to make it to our respective jobs on time), and the afternoons are hit and miss as to whether we have something on the schedule.

This race was a fun one, though. It had the signature hills that any road race through downtown will, but a good third of it is weaving through the Bicentennial Mall state park. That part of the route is mostly flat, so it is not nearly as tough as the last long leg down Gay Street before it merges into First Avenue. A few runners around me were complaining about an uphill finish line, but I was not too worried about it.

Also somewhat therapeutic was today’s jog through Shelby Park in East Nashville. I have managed to run in three 5K races so far this year, with the fourth coming up next weekend. I have been skipping the whole “training” part of race preparation for a while, and I think I have been missing out on more than just shaving a few minutes off my time. For a fairly un-athletic guy like me, a run is a lot like a argument with my body. I set out to say “four miles? piece of cake,” and take off with a long stride. Half a mile into it, my body files its first complaint, so I slow down to a walk. I argue back by trying to keep up the pace, and it gets more and more insistent. Shortening bursts of running, followed by longer spans of walking. By the end of the run, my body has mostly won the argument by either cutting the run shorter than I would have liked, or making me pay dearly in the morning.

The real benefit, aside from not being 400 pounds from leading a sedentary lifestyle and having a lousy diet, comes from being outside and alone with my thoughts. I try to think through projects from work, problems in society and even do a little personal reflection. The time it takes me to finish the run or the distance traveled is not nearly as important if I can hit a breakthrough in any of those categories. I am not sure if today was one of those days, but maybe I am getting closer to something.

Earlier today I was sitting in a coffee shop in midtown Memphis, waiting on two Eggos and a fruit plate. The place was an eclectic mix of everything you expect to see in a non-corporate coffee shop, complete with the colorful characters that frequent such establishments. I cannot pass judgment, as I am one of those people. We had just checked out of the hotel room a half hour earlier and were meeting up with Samantha’s friends from the area and folks from our college days. A similar scene had played out on Friday night, when we met up with a different set of friends from college in downtown Nashville. Both times it was very chill, very laid back, and the topics of conversation surprisingly heavy.

I sat there twirling the metal stand I had been given with my order number while Samantha sat outside with the rest of the group. The Memorial Day weekend did not look like anything I had thought it would, and I suppose that is just fine. It was fun, but not in the exhilarating, high octane way that I am more accustomed to. It was a lot of talking, a lot of sharing and even more thinking. I spent more time on the inside of my head in the last seventy-two hours than I have in a very long time. The twirling metal stand was more than just a symbol of the food that was taking far longer than a fruit plate and two Eggo waffles should — it was where my eyes were fixed while my mind jumped from conversation to conversation, place to place, situation to situation.

I am not ready for the work week ahead, but I am hopeful it is an easier one with the abbreviated schedule. I need to take a vacation to flush out some of this general anxiety that always takes hold in the summer. Anyone down for a road-trip?

I had already lowered my expectations for how I would perform in this morning’s event. Last year, I had managed to get in semi-weekly (or at least weekly) training runs in for the month prior to the event. This year, the only training I had managed were two other 5K races earlier in the year. I believe my official time was somewhere between 44 and 47 minutes (the race website is not updated yet, and my phone app crashed halfway through), several minutes longer than in 2009. Aside from not training, the rain that had fallen overnight had made some parts of the course a muddy mess — not the easiest way to go about setting a land speed record.

I think the next 5K I will aim for this year will be the Music Fest Road Race on June 12. Hopefully, I will be able to sneak in a few hours of jogging before then.

“Should this mirror go?” “Yeah, the water was at least that high, and the wood is probably starting to mold.” I set down the prybar that I had been using in a futile effort to remove the carpeting edging and placed both hands to either side of the mirror. I stopped suddenly. “Wow.”

On the mirror, the dirt was very pronounced right at where the water line had been. I let it hang there for a moment more. I could see the reflection of the volunteers streaming in and out of the house on Neill Street in East Nashville, a large trash pile looming large behind them lining the city street. The small, two bedroom house was starting to empty of its contents, with all of the carpet removed from the living room, the kitchen mostly empty. Empty, except for the remnants of the Hanes t-shirt box that had held the family’s Christmas tree. Mud was still caked everywhere.

The scene was similar to a dozen or so others from earlier this morning and yesterday. Volunteers entered houses clad in yellow shirts, gloves, face masks, carry tools and cleaning supplies. Five to seven people would work for an hour or so before moving on to the next work site. The piles of trash strewn across the yard along the street would grow five-fold in that time, all of it the personal belongings of complete strangers, ruined in the flood.

This is parts of East Nashville. With widespread devastation in Bellevue, downtown, Opryland and other places, it is tough to catch much of a glimpse of it on the evening news. Finding these work sites is often a challenge without a GPS. But when you do find it, it is unmistakable. Some folks are lucky. Their basements flooded, turning everything that had been kept in storage into toxic trash. For those folks, it is a matter of getting rid of stuff they probably had not seen in years. Others, it is their entire home and living space. In the six or so hours each day that I was on a worksite, I have seen homes with minor flooding (12 to 16 inches in the basement) to catastrophic losses (the home on Neill Street had at least 5’6″ of water in it). Look up from your computer and mentally picture where that would be on your wall. Now figure out how much stuff you would still have.

The work has been hard, but it has not been without a few laughs here and there. Yesterday, I worked in one side of a duplex owned by a retired couple. Our job was to remove the first four feet of drywall (I later learned this is because drywall comes in four-foot sections) and the insulation behind it. The reason to leave the second four feet intact was because it did not get wet, and could be retained when the contractors came in to finish up. My hammer slipped, nicking the top section. The son of the couple just laughed, saying sarcastically “Don’t worry man, it’s just my inheritance.” The gravity of the matter was that his parents had no idea how they would pay the $5,000 deductible per unit before their insurance would kick in.

When working a townhouse on a different street, our team scooped up the contents of the living room before ripping out the carpet. It was obviously the home to people with children, as toys, books, crayons and more were all scattered about. While carrying out the dishwasher, one of the volunteers found a Justin Beiber CD, covered in mud next to the door. “Well, it looks like this, uh… Justin BYE-ber disc isn’t any good anymore.” Another volunteer carrying an armload of garbage dryly said as he walked by, “It was already ruined long before the flood.”

At a house on Joseph Street yesterday, we waiting for a FEMA agent to enter the home before we began work. She methodically walked throughout the house, taking notes on her tablet PC and snapping pictures with a small digital camera. The questions were about how high the water had come, where the circuit breaker box was located and whether the chest freezer had been knocked over by the water, or if it had been turned over when they entered the home. I could not pay much attention to what was happening in between arm loads of soggy clothes. The two residents stood at the fence line while we worked. I would imagine that being in the house would have been tough for me had I been in their shoes. They could barely even look at the trash piling up on the street.

To us, the flood meant trash. Our job was to get as much of the stuff out of there as quickly as possible before deadly mold set up in the home. But it is not that simple. Our groups were also dispatched with volunteers experienced with pastoral care. Because the flood was not just an event that turned their belongings to trash. It was something that has forever changed their lives, mixing hope among the tragedy of losing everything. Each box was more than just a soggy stack of old clothes — they were memories that the volunteers could never really connect with, but as vivid as ever for the those that called the place home.

No matter what building we entered, it seemed to be a universal truth that everything that touched water had to be put out to the curb. Except the Bibles. If you waited around long enough or if the right volunteer saw it before moving things out, there would be a single family Bible left on the porch railing. Faith is a powerful tool in coping with hard times. I am not sure if the book was left for the homeowner as much as it was for the volunteers who walked by it on every trip back from the street corner.

The weekend has ended without feeling much of a sense of accomplishment, but it was not for a lack of trying. There is still so much work to be done on the long road to recovery for Nashville, and even longer for the cities and counties to our north, south and west. The efforts of volunteers has been inspiring to many people who call Tennessee home and beyond. The reality of volunteer work is this, though. You will have times when it does not just simply come together, personalities clash and effort is wasted. But I believe that anyone who tries to help a neighbor in their time of need has made a difference in a world often called cold and cynical.

For many volunteers, the work week will start tomorrow just as it always has. My mind will be wandering down a street that, before this weekend, I had never even heard of.

I sat there by the water’s edge, gazing into it as we awaited our next move. The light tower from the Nashville-Davidson County Office of Emergency Management reflected in the pool of water. A few days earlier, I would have been sitting on the edge of a parking lot. Tonight, I was peering down into a three to four foot sinkhole back-filled with water.

The coordinator for the sandbag effort plodded slowly through the water. His objective was to shove a retractable fiberglass poll into the mud to mark where the drop-off began. A few hours earlier, an OEM deputy face-planted into the hole, and despite the disappointment of the onlookers who wanted to see that happen again (it was damn funny), he managed to mark the spot to avoid.

He likely did this because the hundreds gathered at MetroCenter were starting to thin out. They were tired of waiting on the last truck filled with sandbags. If they were going to go home, he wagered, he did not want to be responsible for what others may find hilarious. I would not call the department volunteers deserters — they had already gone above and beyond what many had or were able to do in the response to the flooding.

The volunteers were called together via an e-mail sent to everyone who had signed up through Hands on Nashville, the organization that the Mayor’s Office has partnered with to coordinate relief efforts. I love it when a vibrating cell phone suddenly results in an all-afternoon effort.

Somewhere near the Nissan dealership, there are two newly constructed sandbag walls. The first was uphill from the parking lot below. Officials hoped that the wall would be enough to keep the water at bay if the main levee were to be overtaken. Some of that was already happening with a gurgling hole keeping the parking lot nice and flooded. Ours was aimed to help curtail the water if it were to come over the edges as well. There was a time late this afternoon where that was a very real possibility.

We learned shortly after leaving that the river had already crested at 51.85 feet, almost 12 feet above flood stage. Our project was primarily a precautionary measure if the water levels had reached 54 or more feet, as they would have begun spilling over the levees. Had that happened, there was a fairly solid chance that MetroCenter would have met the same fate as downtown and the Opryland area — spending the next few months trying to put the pieces back together again.

Samantha and I are exhausted, aching, and fortunate. I really need to go in to work tomorrow, provided that the roads have cleared enough to do so. Our office is not too far from MetroCenter, and there were tons of closures from water rushing over the roadway. Check out my photos from today.

We sit on a dry street in East Nashville, completely oblivious to the catastrophe that is striking Nashville and the surrounding areas. Strike that, we are hardly oblivious — at this very hour, a police scanner is rattling off streets and units numbers, and Samantha is furiously hammering out the details on Twitter and Facebook. It is a hard habit to break, the odd desire to share information, even when scarce, about major events. Being geographically removed from the areas hardest hit in West Nashville and Franklin, I do not have any harrowing tale of water rescues or flooded roadways. We were home yesterday long before any of that took hold. Instead, we were listing to a weather radio blare out the names of surrounding counties and the funnel clouds that were bearing down on them.

So, this is a 100-year flood. It is going to be days before the final tallies are announced in deaths, displaced households and millions/billions of dollars in damages. The aerial view of the River Plantation condominium development were the toughest to take. My first Nashville job required me to ride/walk/drive right through there. Now, all you can see is roof peaks and tree tops jutting out of the greenish water.

The office has a bit of water damage from a leaky roof, but should be up and running tomorrow. Getting there is a completely different story, as I would somehow have to cross the Cumberland River to get over to Germantown. I have already decided that I will be telecommuting tomorrow. Samantha is wanting to spend some of her employer-approved community service hours to help out, but we are not even sure if we can get to the areas that are in need of assistance. The Mayor’s Office has all but begged people to stay off the roads, closing schools and freezing the bus lines until further notice.

Given that I spent quite a bit of time near the Internet today, I thought I would share some of the stuff I checked out.

• EMS Radio that’s playing in our living room
• NOAA: Cumberland River at Nashville
• Flood Map that wasn’t available online earlier
• Google Earth: Downtown Nashville (plugin required)
• “Tennessee’s Not Landlocked Anymore” (music video)
• Home Depot pouring salt in our wounds
• Nashvillest Open Thread
• Unfortunate Telestrating and its Facebook Page (2,500+ fans?!?)
• Surprised Weatherman

So that is it. The Nashville Predators drop the deciding Game 6 to the visiting Chicago Blackhawks, ending their playoff run in an all-to-familiar date on the calendar: late April. The hockey club has proven very reliable at getting to the postseason, but only mildly effective at doing anything when they get there. Their first accomplishment is not being swept by any team that they’ve played (Detroit, San Jose and now Chicago). This year it was finally winning a road game.

Read similar laments from 2007-08 and 2006-07.

Baby steps, true. But for a franchise in its eleventh season, I have to wonder how long “baby steps” can support a fan base that dreams of nothing less than a Stanley Cup in Music City. Considering the off-the-ice saga that seems to dog the Predators every summer (sale of the team, pending move to Ontario, bankrupt billionaires, arena leases), it seems improbable that they will be shaking these “small market” blues anytime soon. Perennial underdogs.

At lunch today, a group of co-workers were discussing the challenges that Nashville has in supporting two professional sporting teams. The Tennessee Titans enjoy an embarrassment of riches in fan-support, player talent, and raw cash to lure in the talent that makes or breaks them. Their fans often forgive-and-forget when it comes to missing the playoffs, or if they too are bounced out of the early rounds. The Predators are perhaps the exact opposite — zero payroll to speak of (the salary cap is a non-factor), few sellouts and even fewer dollars to market the team to new fans. Again, perennial underdogs.

So now what happens in the off season? There will be a handful of unrestricted free agents to either reel in or cut loose. There is the draft, but unlike football the players will either go back to their college or off to an AHL team to prove their worth before making the jump to the NHL roster. There will likely be a few trades, but doubtful it will be for a big name (see: zero payroll). I am even betting on a random Predators investor to be charged with fraud. You know, just to keep it interesting.

The 1-for-30 on the power play through six games tells of one area in blatant need of improvement. Reliable offense is always in short supply in our defensive-minded team, so a playmaker line has to emerge through trades or development. Goaltending is not that much of a question mark any more, with Pekka Rinne keeping his team within reach for most of the games he was in the crease. Not sure if Dan Ellis gets traded to be a starter elsewhere, or if he is content getting 20-30 games a year in the relief role.

Obviously, if you have read this far down, it is apparent that I am disappointed in how the season ended. What I am not disappointed with is the times I got to hang out with friends at the game or at viewing parties in living rooms or bars. It was a great season, and only one team can advance in the playoffs.

The 2010-11 campaign starts in 163 days, and to say what I am hoping in not becoming our team moto: “We’ll get ‘em next year.”

I tried my best to remain calm despite the crowds and the frequent violation of “personal space” by the spectators. It did not help that the rain had started to fall, and my only umbrella was in my car a little more than a mile away from where I was standing. They had come to watch friends and family cross the finish line of the Country Music Marathon here in Nashville. As for me, I was doing the same, but I was fairly sure that everyone had already completed the course by the time I got there. Still, I had never been on hand for the event, and it was all that was on my schedule for the day. I really just wanted to go and snap a few pictures.

The last week has been a rather interesting one. On Tuesday, I witnessed a Stanley Cup playoff game that may unseat my favorite hockey game I’ve ever watched — the other being a game in a past series against the Detroit Red Wings. The building was intense, the play was good and the scoreboard showed 4-1 Nashville Predators over the Chicago Blackhawks when the final horn sounded. The following night, I went to a political event with Samantha that involved a lot of music, food, drink and dancing (I took part in everything but the dancing). Thursday was another playoff hockey game, but the result was less than stellar. So watching the end of a marathon seemed like a good way to close out the week.

When I walked up to the marathon finish line, the fifth and sixth place runners had just arrived. The storms were rolling in, so these runners were lucky enough to complete the course before the race organizers abbreviated the race. I did not know anyone running the full marathon, but I did know a number of people completing the half marathon. As I made my way over toward the half marathon finish line, I saw a wide range of emotions: pain, relief, joy, disappointment and enthusiasm. There was surely some reason behind each — perhaps they pushed their body too far or crossed a personal milestone on the road to a better self. I have run a handful of 5Ks now, but those runners never showed this much raw emotion. I guess in those meager 3.1 miles, you treat everything as “business as usual.”

There were dozens of “teams” that were running for various causes. The American Heart Association and the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society both had a large contingent, as did Tim McGraw’s foundation for brain cancer research in honor of his dad. Some wore shirts for a family member, a workplace or a school. Everywhere you looked, there was some reminder of the symbolism that this race held for each participant. If you get a minute, a friend of mine wrote a piece about her own motivation to run the half marathon.

But of all of them, there was one that really stood out to me. There was not a t-shirt or flag for this cause, or a team or a tent. It was just a middle-aged woman, holding a picture over the railing at the finish line. In the picture, there was an older woman with a bandanna on her head. Nothing else was around it to give it context. The bandanna likely covered the hair loss from chemotherapy treatments — I could not come to any other explanation. I found myself ignoring the runners came in to cross the finish line, and just looked at the picture. Having lost someone who was very important to me to cancer in the last year, I could feel my heart breaking for the woman and whomever she was waiting to cross the finish line.

A few minutes later, the announcer called everyone’s attention to a scene just a few feet from the picture — a young couple stopped suddenly before the finish line, and the man dropped to one knee. My cynical self immediately thought “attention whores,” but then I chuckled a bit to myself. Here they were, a few feet from a powerful scene expressing that life is fragile, beginning theirs anew together. Dozens of other runners swept by, each holding something in their heart that brought them out to run today.

The rain began to come down harder, and the race officials announced that the full marathon runners that had not yet completed the course were being diverted to finish with the half marathon (about six or so miles short). Most of the full marathoners (they wore blue bibs) were obviously disappointed, but still ran hard to the finish. Two guys, however, argued with a race official when they realized they were not getting the full course. “I didn’t come all this way to run 20 miles!” one shouted. By now, lightning had already cracked on the horizon, and the police were urging everyone to make their way to the shuttles or their cars. The men continued to argue as other runners darted around them before abruptly turning around and running backwards on the course. I have no idea where they were going, unless it was find whatever 3.1 miles looked like before coming back. I’m guessing they were just running for themselves.

After realizing that everyone I knew had long since come and gone, I started back toward my car. My phone measured the distance out at a little over a mile, as I had parked on Fatherland Street and walked to LP Field. In spite of the heavy rain and the distance, the stroll went rather quickly. I was too lost in my thoughts on everything I had witnessed to notice.

That ends my rant. Aside from the finer points of AP style, the transition represents an acknowledgment that the technology we use often races ahead of the words we use to describe it. For example, Wired magazine made the switch from “Internet” to “internet” in 2004. While I have not seen the 2010 edition yet, “Internet” is likely still listed as a proper noun. Their reasoning:

[...] But in the case of internet, web and net, a change in our house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television.

It will take quite a while for me to break the habit, and given that I am no longer afforded the luxury of an on-staff copy editor (you can read this site for evidence of that), it will keep being goofed up from time to time. I will try my best to go find something else to complain about.

The alarm had gone off two hours prior, but getting out of bed this morning was a chore and a half. We had watched and celebrated the Nashville Predators nab their first road playoff win over the Chicago Blackhawks late into the night before, and the older we get, the earlier our bedtime is supposed to be. My plan for the day was sparse, but I really wanted to check out the Earth Day Festival at Centennial Park like we did last year. While Samantha was getting ready to head out, I started to straighten up the apartment and took out the trash.

Today was a beautiful day, with the temperature hovering in the low 70s for most of the day with bright sunshine. As I walked back from the trash cans, I noticed that Samantha’s car door was not all the way shut. I opened the door to lock it, and saw the pile of of stuff in the passenger seat. We had a bit of a guest overnight, likely walking through the parking lot and looking for unlocked cars. Whoever he or she was, he opened the door, sat down and emptied the glove box and center console. Not finding anything of value, he moved on. Nothing was stolen, not even chargers for our phones. After reaching that conclusion, I put back where it came from and cleaned out the floorboard of the car from the leftover Diet Coke bottles from her last two weekends on the road.

I went in and told Samantha what had happened, and called the police. While nothing was stolen and the car was not damaged, I wanted to make sure that the incident was at least part of the statistics in case there was another car break-in overnight. The dispatcher took my information, and said an officer would be there soon. I kept cleaning out the car and making sure there was not anything that I remembered leaving in it. The person could not have spent long in the car, as the backseat was left virtually untouched (same beach towel in the seat, paperwork in the back pockets still in place). The officer rolled up about ten minutes later. My opinion of Metro response times has greatly improved.

He was a friendly guy, gesturing me to come to the side of the squad car where he rolled down the window. He asked a few simple questions (“When did you find it like this?,” “Are you certain that nothing of value is missing?,”) as well as the expected reminder about locking your doors in any neighborhood, not just East Nashville. “I’ve worked in this neighborhood for 19 years, and I can tell you it has really changed,” he said. “But you’re still going to have things like this happen in every neighborhood. You just gotta be smart.”

We talked a bit longer while he finished up the paperwork, noticing the UT Alumni Association plate that my wife has on the back of her car. “I went to UT, but it was time to go,” explaining that he, like me, had a bit of an extended stay. He was talking about Knoxville, but I decided not to bring up that I attended UT Martin. I signed the report, and he gave me the slip of paper with my case number on it. As frustrating as it is to have somebody go through your stuff, I am relieved that nothing was in there to steal, and that whoever it was did not damage the car in the process of not finding anything to steal.

We drove to the post office, where I learned that our Earth Day plans were changing — we were finally going to go get bikes. When Samantha and I moved to East Nashville, there were three stereotypical requirements for living here: skinny jeans, station wagon and bicycles. Neither of us can do the skinny jeans part (there’s a joke here about cheap hotels, but I will save that for a later time), and the car situation is fine as it is. The bikes, on the other hand, have just been a question of when and how much we wanted to pay for them. The answer was “soon” and “not much at all.”

We drove to the Academy Sports in Rivergate to grab two $125 bicycles. Many good friends of ours pleaded with us to get “real” bikes, but we went with the economy line of Huffy cruisers. Nothing fancy, nothing to write home about, and probably will have a resale value of about $25 a piece when they inevitably fall apart. I sent a message to a friend of mine with a Honda Fit to help us get them home — as Alison put it, her contribution to Earth Day was transporting two bicycles in a vehicle that gets 38 miles to the gallon. The three of us chilled at Ugly Mugs for a bit before getting on with the rest of the day.

I attached the various accessories that Samantha had picked out, aired up the tires and adjusted the seats before heading out for a test ride. Mine rides fine, Samantha’s still has a few kinks to work out. Not being too terribly mechanically inclined, I am hoping whatever is wrong is a simple fix.

All in all, a productive but strange day.

Samantha has been out of town the past two weekends to work on a side project with friends, so I have been trying to give myself a re-education in self sufficiency. While I am proud to report that I neither starved nor burned down the apartment, I still left much to be desired on other fronts. Take for example my social calendar. Last weekend I screwed up and forgot what time the hockey game was on, almost ending up missing out on a viewing party that I was set to attend. On Easter Sunday, I slept right through the alarms and missed church services. This weekend, I managed to make it out to a happy hour meet-up and the Saturday hockey game, but again was not up and about in time for church Sunday morning. It would not be nearly so bad if I did not live within walking distance.

Aside from my truancy from Sunday services, I am also a bit disappointed that my natural response to tons of free time on an absolutely gorgeous weekend was to alternate between video games and browsing the same five Web sites over and over again. I have a YMCA membership that I am yet to use, a half dozen parks within a short distance and a mostly full tank of gas in my car. For as much as I gripe about not getting out and doing things, I sure did not have much of the impetus to do it.

With a quarter of 2010 down, it is probably time to start taking a serious look at those fitness goals again. As the weather starts to warm up (we are already creeping into the 80s), I need to find a decent hobby. Golf is a prime candidate, given that I can get away with buying just three clubs and a sleeve of golf balls — scratch that, several sleeves — without spending a ton of money on a full set of clubs. I could actually try training for some of these 5K races that we sign up for rather than hoping for the best that morning. Samantha has put bicycles at the top of our shopping list, provided we can find a pair that do not add up to the cost of a car payment.

This all sounds familiar as I write it, and for good reason. My hobby is starting to become the act of never settling on an actual hobby. Also known as “whining.”

One cannot help but stand in awe at the dedication that Apple fans demonstrate on the day of a new product launch. Standing in long lines or waiting at sunrise for a store to open just does not strike me as worth the effort. Still, I am also not one to judge someone because of their feats of dedication — I am the same guy who paid full-price for a ticket to a hockey game after missing the first two-thirds of it last month.

So a device that starts at around $499.00 is the tech du jour that makes the must-have list for many geeks. I get that. The more budget conscious side of me wonders what else could be done with around $500, and would that product or service match or exceed the gain of having an iPad? Probably not.

Local radio stations will sometimes run decade-themed weekends, usually the 80s or 90s. As I was driving around today, I heard “I Wanna Be Rich,” a song by a one-hit wonder called Calloway (yes, I looked all that up). The song goes “I want money, lots and lots of money [...] For a little peace, love and happiness.” This is where I could argue the point that the first part does not necessarily provide the second. Those are tired arguments.

What I do know is a bit about our society and the rules that we have to play by. If we have a job, we want to make more money while doing it (over time). That is simply a necessity to satisfy our other needs and wants; things that, generally speaking, require greater financial resources that we have at the moment. Still, with unemployment hanging at around 10 percent statewide, there has to be at least a mild tinge of guilt when we actively pursue whatever our heart desires (e.g. iPad, or in my case, first round Stanley Cup Playoff tickets).

Notice I called it a tinge of guilt — you could take this guilt feeling to the extreme and think about anyone less fortunate than yourself in every single action you take, from flushing the toilet, to turning on the air conditioner, to drinking a beer with your friends. I firmly believe that kind of guilt is paralyzing, and can ultimately interfere with your ability to support even your own basic needs. So how would we reconcile our desire for new and cool things with this nagging feeling that you could have done more with the money, either by saving it or trying to correct an ill of society? I do not have the answer to that.

I did not buy an iPad today because I could not find a legitimate reason to own one, not because I did not want one. Samantha and I would have a debate on the “afford” one portion depending on whose paycheck has cleared. I got playoff tickets because I wanted to go and knew that I would enjoy the game immensely. Again, whether they could be afforded is up for debate. I do not feel self-righteous for not spending the money on the iPad, but I do not feel guilty for spending the money on the playoff tickets.

The song was about aspiring to the middle to upper middle class while putting the days of harassing bill collectors behind him. Despite the underlying tone of greed and self-centeredness, I hope that the subject of the song was able to achieve his goals of “peace, love and happiness.” Is that not what we are all after?