I'd Rather Drink Coffee.

I keep asking myself if this Tea Party thing is only a passing fad we're going to see rehashed someday on VH-1's Remember the 2010s, or if it is a truly enduring political movement whose impact will be felt for many years to come. History will tell the story, but the influence this group appears to have had in recent elections makes me wonder how it came about, and what these white middle-class Americans, not so seemingly different from myself, are so angry about.

They profess to be angry about the increasing encroachment of the federal government onto their basic freedoms and object to what they consider to be the government spending too much money without working out where it is going to come from. They say they feel the middle-class bears too much of the financial burden for our country already, and asking more of them will only serve to finally break their back. Their name is actually an acronym that spells out their purpose: Taxed Enough Already.

Their objectives do not sound overly sinister, and I find that I can even relate to their mission. The middle-class of America certainly shoulders more than their share of  the burden of paying for our government's operation. It has always been that way, and probably always will be. If I truly believed this was what the Tea Party movement was actually about, perhaps I could join them. I certainly wouldn't mind paying less taxes. I don't particularly enjoy the idea of having an all-controlling central government determined to inject its influence ever more intrusively into my daily life, and the truth is that I would probably fit in at a Tea Party rally as easily as anyone. After all, I'm pretty much as white, middle-class, and conservative-raised as anyone could be. Why then do I find myself so viscerally disgusted by even seeing snippets of their gatherings on the news in the moments before I can reach for the remote to change the channel? Of course the media does tend to focus on the nuttiest attendees: angry white people holding signs declaring President Obama as a Nazi wannabe birth certificateless Moslem just this side of the anti-Christ, and at the same time paying homage to their unofficial queen: Sarah Palin, a woman who seems to have little interest in governing, but a lot in being as famous and rich as possible.

Should I trust my gut in finding this movement distasteful like former President Bush might, or do my negative reactions deserve to be more closely scrutinized? Being a proponent of Socrates' statement that an unexamined life is not worth living, I feel obligated to delve into the thing.

After reviewing web site after web site proclaiming the virtues of The Tea Party and the fine patriotic views it purports to stand for, I discovered my original opinion to be reinforced rather than refuted. It isn't the basic principles of the Tea Party I find objectionable although I do believe their choice of targets are misguided. Obama, Health Care, Pelosi, The Stimulus, and Bailouts appear to be buzzwords for mad as Hell Tea Partiers to throw punches at rather than the real culprits for the fundamental misfortunes of middle class Americans. My intuition tells me these issues run much deeper and are more complex than these good patriots care to ponder. These problems have also been around much longer than any of us care to think about. In my reading, I discovered this article that addresses these issues in a way that made a lot of sense to me.

But what truly bothers me about the Tea Party movement isn't what they profess to stand for. All of the rhetoric about smaller government and anger about taxes and spending is a flimsy, halfhearted attempt to disguise what it's truly about: The middle-class, white, properly God-fearing, salt-of-the-Earth types sense they are losing ground in America. Minorities of every sort are gaining power. Blacks and Hispanics are becoming more numerous, educated, and wealthy. Gay people are rapidly being accepted into the mainstream of American society. Our culture is shifting to a gradually more secular place where fundamentalist Christianity does not hold as much influence as it once did. The typical Tea Partier, who has always considered him or herself "the real Americans" our founding fathers had in mind when they put our nation together wants to fight back. They see this as their last stand--their final chance to turn America around to change it back to the country they wish it to be--a place where the can feel comfortably superior, where minorities know their place, where gay people are marginalized, and where a black man would know better than to have the audacity to run for President.

I am also convinced the Tea Party only exists because the perfect combination of variables fell into place for them. Most importantly, the economy tanked. There would be no fuel for such a movement to exist if this were not the case. Then Sarah Palin was named John McCain's running mate. The Tea Party may lack a true leader, but in her they have a perfect figurehead. She seems to voice their cause so perfectly that it makes you wonder if the Tea Party was somehow conceived because of her, or perhaps the whole thing was her secret brain child. It becomes a chicken or the egg question. She is their perfect ambassador, and they give her the perfect platform to spread her seemingly simple-minded message that nonetheless obviously resonates with this segment of the population. In Barack Obama, the Tea Partiers also have the perfect foil--a black, cerebral, liberal-leaning President with a suspiciously Muslim sounding name. No Hollywood writer could have invented a better arch-villain.

Over and over, I ask myself if I am being needlessly  prejudiced and judgmental in having such an uncharitable opinion of this group. Am I being short-sighted and unfair to these people who, demographically at least, are so like me. They seem to be a group that thrives and prospers on emotion--chiefly anger--while I am a person who tends to purposefully put my emotions aside in favor of logic and rationality. Perhaps this is what truly repels me. But logic also tells me that while the Tea Party may be able to exert considerable influence in the here and now because of the power of their emotion, they will not be an enduring force in American politics. How could such extreme Tea Party based candidates such as Carl Palladino and Christine O'Donnell be anything but flash fires that burn white-hot, but also quickly extinguish themselves? If I was to return five years from now to read this post, would I say to myself--'I can't believe the Tea Party was such a big deal I put this much energy into writing about them,' or will I think that this was just the tip of the iceberg for them as I try to ignore the television as it plays Sarah Palin's State of the Union Address filled with cutesy winks and references to Mama Grizzlies.

For the sake of our country, I hope not, and my gut says it could never happen...

Doesn't it?

"Slip" Splish Splash

A view of the St. John's River

When I was five or maybe six years old, I went on a fishing trip to the St. John's River in Florida with my dad and uncle. Prior to the trip, I remember asking my dad if we would be swimming in the St. John's like we went swimming in the Flint River whenever we went there on weekends during the summer. My dad said that we would not be doing this. The St. John's, unlike the Flint was too dirty to go swimming in, he told me. We would only be fishing.

In spite of this explanation, I couldn't get the idea of swimming in the St. John's out of my mind. If you could swim in one river, why couldn't you swim in the other? It didn't make sense to me. I remember a lot of details of the trip in spite of it being so long ago. Besides my uncle--Super Bob, and my dad, Uncle Ben also accompanied us. He was actually my great uncle. I remember how thin and dry he looked, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. He loved to talk and he entertained us constantly with tales of fishing trips past. We fished all day on the St. John's from our john boat, and it seems like all we caught was a single fish. I remember seeing a giant eagle's nest with an eagle perched inside of it and being filled with a sense of awe at the sight. Uncle Ben said the bird was actually an osprey, but that was close enough to an eagle for me. I couldn't wait to tell my mom about it when we got home.

I also couldn't see the supposed difference between the St. John's and the Flint. As far as I could tell, they were both large bodies of fresh water where people fished. It was the dead of summer time, and the heat was oppressive. All I could think about all day besides the magical eagle, and the fact that no fish were biting was how cool and refreshing it would be to jump in the water. Late that afternoon, after we were done fishing and relaxing at Uncle Ben's cabin, I had an idea. I told my dad that I wanted to try my hand at fishing on the pier for awhile because I was so disappointed at not catching a fish all day on the boat. I was wearing jeans and a baseball cap as I had not been allowed to bring my swim trunks. My mother hadn't let me pack them because, knowing how much I wanted to swim in the St. John's, she felt it would be too tempting.

But that was really okay with me because I'd always wondered what it would be like to swim in jeans anyway. I thought of it as having two fun new experiences at once: swimming in a new river and in jeans instead of swim trunks. I was excited walking towards the pier with a fishing rod and a small container of crickets. It was like setting out on an adventure. I fished for awhile contemplating my plan as I did so. No fish were biting off the pier either and boredom set in. It wasn't a long drop from the pier to the water and it looked so cool and inviting. My plan was to accidentally fall in. That way I wasn't breaking any rules. It would just be an accident. I was just a little boy, and everyone knew little boys often had accidents. I thought if I fell in with the pole in my hand, it would be more believable. So I took a deep breath and casually stepped off the end of the pier into the water.

I remember that it seemed a further drop from the pier than it had appeared, but the water was as nice and cool as I had imagined. I still couldn't understand my parents' swimming prohibition. Swimming in jeans, however, turned out to be a mistake. They were so heavy that kicking my feet to stay afloat was difficult. I also saw, to my chagrin, that the pole I had jumped in with had escaped my grip. It was beyond my reach and floating steadily away on the river's current. All I could do was watch it go. That wasn't good. Losing the fishing pole, I knew, meant there was a spanking in my future.

Apparently my dad had seen me "slip" because he came outside the cabin and yelled at me.

"What the hell are you doing, Charlie?" he asked.

"I fell in," I replied. "I accidentally dropped the pole."

"Get your ass out of that water!" he told me.

Unhappily, I swam the short distance to the shore, struggling to do so in my water-logged jeans. My dad quickly untied the boat and motored right past me on his way to retrieve the dropped fishing pole. I went inside dripping water on the floor and faced Super Bob and Uncle Ben.

"I fell in," I explained. Both of them laughed like I'd told a particularly funny joke. I went to the bathroom to shed the jeans.

A few minutes later, my dad returned. He hadn't seen the humor in my stunt, and didn't believe for a moment that I had slipped. He gave me three licks with his belt for almost losing his fishing pole, and I was hurt that my own father thought I was lying. I appealed to Super Bob.

"I was walking toward the end of the pier," I told him, "and a shadow went across my head. I thought it was that eagle about swoop down on me, and I slipped and fell in."

He laughed. "Yeah, right," he said. "You expect me to believe that when all you've been talking about is how it's not fair you can't swim in the St. John's like you do the Flint?"

"Yes," I said. "Because I'm telling the truth."

But he didn't believe me and I was heartbroken. The only person whose sympathy I successfully appealed to was my mother after we got home. "Your dad should have been more concerned with you than his fishing pole," she said. "He can always get another rod and reel, but he'll never get another Charlie."

"That's right," I said, vindicated. "That pier was slippery and I thought an eagle was going to get me."

Daddy just smirked, but I could tell from his half smile that he was finally seeing the humor in the situation.

"So was it really an eagle flying over you?" he asked.

"No. Just a cloud passing over the sun," I said.

He shook his head and walked away smiling.

I was in the Navy Then.

U.S.S. Hawes FFG-53--The ship I served on for three and a half years in the Navy.

Eleven years have passed now since I've completed my enlistment in the Navy and fifteen years since I originally joined. In some ways it seems odd that so much time has passed, and in another way, it seems it happened in an entirely different lifetime. When I signed up for the Navy in the Winter of 1993, it was both an impulse decision and the most thought out thing I had ever done.

It came about in large part because of a late night conversation I had with my roommate. I was confiding in him about my frustration with being nearly finished with college, and still having no idea about what I really wanted to do with my life. The degree I was pursuing--English--was not exactly going to set me up for lucrative job opportunities. I had majored in the subject simply because it was what I made the best grades in in high school, and because I knew I wanted to be a writer, but didn't know exactly how to go about becoming such a thing.

My roommate, Scott, who had no doubt what he wanted to become once he graduated--a trainer for a professional football team which he promptly became, suggested that the military might be a good option for me because it would give me some more time to figure out what the heck I wanted to with myself, and would also give me some tools I needed to develop such as becoming more organized and self-disciplined. He also felt I possessed qualities that would make me a good soldier such as being a pretty steady, level-headed guy who was in physically outstanding shape.

I had never seriously considered joining the military before that night although in the back of my mind I'd always wondered if I had what it took to become a soldier, and had always considered it a very honorable thing to be. Besides that, I'd always idolized my uncle who retired from the Marine Corps as a Lieutenant Colonel, and won various awards in combat in Vietnam when he was a part of a Marine Recon division, including the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Almost since the time I could talk, I referred to him as Super Bob because that's how I felt about him.

I thought that if I was going to join the military, I should really become a warrior for it to be worth my time. I talked about it with my uncle when I went home the following weekend. He told me the toughest, most elite special forces unit in the military were the U.S. Navy SEALs, and that if I really wanted to become one of the best, then they were the group to become a part of. Taking this to heart, I began to read heavily about the SEALs--their history, their purpose, and what was involved in becoming one. All of it appealed to me, and I decided to pursue it.

I went to the Navy recruiter's office with my friend, Jim Hayes, who embraced the idea completely as soon as I mentioned it to him. The recruiter signed us up for the ASVAB. Jim scored in the 99 percentile which was good enough to qualify him to enroll in the nuclear program, and I scored in the 95 percentile, which was good enough for me to go to almost any Naval "A school" I wanted after Basic to learn a job to do in the Navy. I chose Operations Specialist simply because the recruiter told me that it was a rate a Navy SEAL could have. To this day, I'm disappointed I didn't choose the journalist rate. If I had, maybe my time in the Navy wouldn't have been the total career wash that it became. I think I knew even before I joined the Navy that in spite my interest in becoming a SEAL, it wasn't something I truly wanted to do down deep in my heart.

I didn't tell my dad about my plans to join the Navy until just before I was scheduled to go to Jacksonville for MEPs, where you're prodded and poked by various indifferent doctors and are formally sworn into the armed forces. I knew he wouldn't think it was the best idea, and also had some idea he would be offended that I didn't consult with him beforehand about it. It also occurred to me that he would feel he'd wasted all the money he'd saved for most of my life to send me to college, and here I was choosing to leave school before I'd graduated. I was less than a year away from graduating, and if I had graduated before joining the military, I would have been eligible to become an officer rather than joining as enlisted. It seems foolish that I joined so rashly when I could have put myself in a much better position by graduating first, but I know that I didn't wait because if I had, I wouldn't have joined the Navy at all. Actually, after I was sworn into the Navy in Jacksonville, I began to rethink my whole decision. I joined in January of 1994, and was not scheduled to leave for Basic until July 17th. I learned that a person could back out without penalty before they had gone through six weeks of Basic training, and the truth was, that after MEPS, I felt I had made a mistake, but my pride would not let me back out of it. I decided I had made a decision and would follow through with it regardless of anything.

The day finally came, and it was a hard one. My grandmother, sister, and uncle drove me to Valdosta where I would ride a bus to Jacksonville from where I would catch a plane to Great Lakes, Illinois for Basic training. My dad was struck by a migraine headache that day and couldn't come. I have no doubt that the headache was completely stress-induced. He didn't want me to join the Navy, and couldn't bear to see me off to do it.

I remember the surrealness of the whole experience that day--arriving in O'Hare airport in Chicago, and taking a shuttle to the Great Lakes Naval base late that evening. We were kept up the entire night being processed and screamed at like so much cattle. My company and I were led to barracks and allowed to lay in our racks for no more than a couple of hours before the Company Commander, an utter asshole of a human being my company came to know as BT1 Keith, woke us with the obligatory trashcan banging and Full Metal Jacket type profanity. It was enough of a shock to me that I had a full blown panic attack that morning that I've never experienced before or since. But I got control of myself by thinking that the whole situation seemed so cliched that it bordered on the ridiculous.

I never made a serious run at becoming a Navy SEAL. I went to try out for it one morning in Basic, and was told to get out of the pool after about half a lap. They said I wasn't doing the breast stroke right. I hadn't thought about learning proper swimming strokes as a prerequisite to becoming a SEAL beforehand. But I also thought it was just as well because from that first day in Basic, my sights became set on enduring the four years required of me, and getting out when it was over. All my former thoughts of becoming a warrior suddenly seemed very silly. I literally counted the days I was in the Navy and still feel to some degree that it was lost time. I'm 38 years old now, but sometimes think I should actually be 34 because the four years I spent in the Navy were so lost they really shouldn't count.

They were, without a doubt, the loneliest, most miserable years of my life, and yet when I think back on them now, it's now without nostalgia. I have to admit that I went through a great deal of personal growth while I was in the Navy. I always knew the world was a much a wider, larger place than it seemed growing up in small town Camilla, GA, but it was good to see that confirmed beyond all doubt while I was in the Navy. I went to tons of places in Europe that I would have never seen otherwise, and I'm glad to have seen those places. It was such an intense time for me, and I spent so much of it inside my own head. It seems that my memories of things I did and saw during that time period are so much clearer and detailed than of almost any other time in my life.

When I finally got out, it felt like I'd pressed a reset button for myself, and I was able to be much more focused when I returned to college. I often wonder how my life would have been different if I hadn't joined the Navy. Would it have been better or worse? In what ways would I have been personally different? I probably would have had an entirely different life. I will never know of course, and it makes no sense to dwell on it. Thankfully, I'm happy with my life now, and I suppose that all the decisions I'm made beforehand have had a part in shaping it.

For better or worse.

Don't Talk To Me About God in the Morning.

For the last several weeks I have noticed myself becoming increasingly irritated by the inane, innocuous, but ultimately innocent comments of my co-workers. I'm not sure if it's the stress of the job getting to me or just because I don't seem to be sleeping up to par on many nights, but I can't deny that the thirty minutes or so of our daily morning meeting have become increasingly tiresome and annoying to me for no particularly good reason. I've been working with basically the same individuals for three and a half years now, and there's really no reason for me to react any differently to them now than ever.

Let's take my over-reaction to Thursday morning's conversation for example...

My boss, stated she has taken a picture of the sun rising over the pond behind her house, and although she doesn't know about the spiritual beliefs of her staff, she finds the beauty of this scene to be infallible proof of God's existence. This sentiment was seconded by several others at the table who agreed that anyone who could not see God's presence in scenes of natural beauty must be spiritually blind or incredibly stupid. The psychiatrist, chimed in that Einstein himself came to believe in God through his scientific observations of the Universe, and a counselor added that some well-known philosopher had proven God's existence through the use of a Johari Window.

I added nothing to this conversation although I silently chafed at the thoughtlessness of their conclusions, but realized, even as I did so, that the comments they made were hardly controversial and would probably be endorsed by the majority, particularly in this true believing region. Why then did their comments ring so false and simple-minded to my ears? Do I really imagine that I have a higher intellect, a deeper understanding, or or a more profound insight into matters of God than the other people at the table?

I don't know. Probably not, but I do feel my views are at least as well thought out and reasoned as theirs. I chose not to engage in the conversation because I do not delude myself in thinking that my views might change anyone's opinion, and did not wish to bring unneeded negative attention to myself. But my blog is a safe place to do so (as long as I don't publicize it) and I feel compelled to write my views here:

I too have often felt moved by the wonders of natural beauty. Any time I look into a clear night sky to see the stars overhead and choose to place myself in an introspective mood, I feel a sense of mysticism and am moved to think of how wonderfully insignificant I am in comparison to the vastness of existence. Standing on a mountain top in Colorado looking over the tops of other snow-capped mountains in every direction for as far as I can see or standing at the edge of the ocean and looking out at the seemingly endless waters of the Atlantic, I am moved to feel the same way. But is the fact that this beauty exists, and that I as well as many others are moved by it proof of God's existence?

I don't believe it's a logical leap unless by God, you are referring to Him as a metaphor for all of the wonders that lie beyond human understanding. (This, I believe, is what Einstein had in mind when he referred to God.) It is certainly not proof of the existence of an anthropomorphic God who has created all of existence in order to please some humans who live on an otherwise insignificant world within an insignificant solar system located within an insignificant galaxy. It used to amaze me that the majority of people in the world are so short-sighted when thinking about these matters, but now I think I understand why religious feelings are so wide-spread, and so many people are so passionate about them. It is because religion is not at all based on logic or reason, but almost entirely on emotion. The Bible does not stand up as a historically accurate document in any objective test, yet many, many people take its words as Truth and would curse you and hate you for even questioning its authenticity. Why is that? It seems to be that it's because so many people place their very identity as well as all their hopes for eternal happiness on the words of this book. There's nothing reasonable or rational about it, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the passion--the emotion that fuels these beliefs. The fact that religious beliefs do not stand up to reason or even the slightest logical scrutiny is irrelevant.

Of course, if you choose not to believe in the literal truth of the God of the Bible or of Jesus for that matter, then where does that leave you as far as eternal questions are concerned? If you take out the options of Heaven and Hell when you die, then what happens to you? I don't know, nor does anyone else that I know of. I think it's most likely that conscious awareness of ourselves ceases when we die, but perhaps our energy, our essence, lives on in some form. In any event, there seems to be no practical reason to dwell on an event that is both inevitable and unknowable.

Does not believing in the Christian God nor any other man-invented one for that matter make you a person incapable of recognizing beauty or knowing right from wrong. Clearly, it does not. If that were true, wouldn't the prison I work in be full of Godless atheists? But it's not. In my time of working at the prison, I have rarely been in a place where more people professed a belief in God with such conviction. Believing in God or not has no bearing on the personal ethics we choose to exercise in our daily life, and I can't believe that anyone who tries to do good only out of fear of going to Hell if they do wrong is truly a moral person. In my experience extrinsic motivators are invariably weaker than intrinsic ones.

On the other hand, it does seem to me that pondering the spiritual side of life does add depth and character to a person's makeup, and that's why it's important to notice and feel essence of the spiritual beauty that exists all around us. It doesn't matter if you label the source of the wonder you feel as God or Nature. What we all long for is something transcendent that explains all the cosmic questions humans have been asking since the dawn of their existence. What's our purpose? What happens to us after we die? Why are we here at all? For that matter, why is there anything here when their seems to easily recognized purpose for any of it. The religions of the world seem to try to throw out nice, pat answers to satisfy their followers when the truth is there are no pat answers. There may in fact be no external answers at all, and our challenge is to live with that.


In the meantime, I should strive to be more in touch with my spiritual side, and not feel so cranky at the morning meetings.

We're all on the Same Team

So I'm 38 and still a sports fan even though I wonder why the heck that's the case. Why should I care if the Braves, Falcons, or Bulldogs win or lose? What's the point? Their success or failure has no bearing whatsoever on my life, and yet in the midst of watching them, I do have to resist the irrational feeling that they do matter. If they win a big game, it feels magical and wonderful. There is a momentary feeling that all is right with the world although the rational part of me realizes that nothing has really changed for me as a result at all. It's not like I think, in a real and logical sense, that the team I root for deserves to win any more than the other team or that the members of my team are any better people than those on the opposing team. It's all very irrational, but there it is nonetheless.

If you really think about it, this syndrome of rooting for your favorite team is somewhat metaphorical for a lot of human behavior in general. You could substitute sports teams for religions for example. Any thinking, rational person must be able to realize that if they were born in a different place or of different parents, they might follow an entirely different religion, and yet so many people have the irrational impulse to believe that the way they worship God is the best way--or in some cases really the only way to do so.

The same could be said of peoples of different nations or different races, or even different families. To me, it seems endemic of human nature that we believe that whatever group we are a part of is the best, superior to all others outside of their group even in the absence or in the face of evidence to the contrary. How many wars, atrocities, and general human misery have come about because of this irrational impulse? And yet it's easy to see why this phenomenon exists. In an evolutionary sense, it's easy to understand how a group of people needed to bond together in order to survive. Loyalty to the family...the group...the tribe...had to be observed above all else. Otherwise the hostile forces outside of that group would destroy it.

But like everything, the same thing that helps us survive also has a destructive side. To wish to destroy "the other" or to fight what is outside of us in natural, but it's not always the rational thing to do. Humans have the capacity for great reason and rationality, but we don't always stop to think of using it. We all have the potential to be really smart and really stupid at the same time.

So with that in mind: Go Dawgs!!

Preamble

So I keep telling myself I want to blog, but so far I haven't done it with any consistency. I've been asking myself what I need to do to blog consistently and why I want to do it at all. Here's the reasons I want to do it: I like to express myself in writing. I always have. I feel like blogging would give me a forum to put down my thoughts and to organize them as well. I think a blog could be a place where I could let all my interests mix and simmer like a hot, delicious stew. I am currently frustrated that I spend so much of my energy at work doing things I have to whose very value I question. I have no choice but to go to work and do these things because if I didn't, I wouldn't have the means to live the way I'd like to live when I'm not at work, and to have the things I like to have. But I wish my work was what I enjoyed doing. I suppose that's having your cake and eating it too, but I know there's plenty of people out there who have that, and wish I was one of them.

But at the same time, I'm more fortunate than many because while I don't love my job, I don't necessarily hate it either, and at least I have a cake to eat. There are plenty whose cake is stolen from them and eaten by others right in front of them.

So to have a forum in which to explore my interests and passions is why I want to keep a blog. The second part of the equation is keeping it updated consistently, and by consistently, I'm thinking at least once a week. These are the ways I'm thinking I can accomplish this. The best way, I think, is for me to not share it with everyone, and maybe not anyone in the beginning until the thing begins to roll of its own momentum. I want to be free to say what I feel without fearing the judgment of others. Perhaps it's gutless to not feel free to say what I think anyway, but I have to be honest with myself about how I am. I don't want to always be having to defend my opinions or to be worrying about offending others with my words. I consider myself a reasonable, thoughtful person, but I certainly don't have charitable opinions about everyone and everything, and I want to be free to express those uncharitable opinions if I desire to do so.

Of course, I do want my blog to be read by others at some point. It's sad for me to think of writing my heart out, and having my words exist in oblivion where they are never seen by anyone. If no one hears a tree fall, did it make a sound? If no one reads what you write, do your words really exist in any meaningful way? I'm not sure. But I do know I don't need to be linking my blog to my facebook page for awhile if I'm going to successfully keep a blog rolling.

I'm thinking my second key to keeping a regular blog is to keep it simple. I don't want to be trying to write the Magna Carta every time I sit down to blog. I want to write down what's in my head without over-editing myself. When I write fiction, I tend to move at a slow pace much of the time because I'm constantly wondering if I'm actually writing as well as I can. When I'm writing this blog, I don't want to care if I'm writing as well as I can. I just want to put the words down and let the pieces fall where they may. I don't want it to be a struggle. I just want to say whatever comes to mind. Also I don't want to narrowly define what I'm going to write about in my blog. I want it to be about whatever I want to say, and allow it to define itself.

So with all that said, let's see if I can do this thing!

My 5K results 2010

1) Sallas Mahone--Don't Run With Scissors 5K Valdosta, GA 3/20/2010 Time: 29:37.4
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=75064

2) Gnat Days 5K Camilla, GA 4/30/2010 Time: 27:40.8
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=76243

3)Rotary 5K at Kinderlou 5K Valdosta, GA 5/15/2010 Time: 27:37.9
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/05/sunrise-rotary-2010.html

4)Watermelon 5K Monticello, FL 6/19/2010 Time: 29:16
http://www.gulfwinds.org/raceresults/2010/Melon%20Run%202010.htm

5)July 4th 5K Valdosta, GA 7/4/2010 Time: 27:50.8
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=77777

6)Honor Our Neighbor 5K Valdosta, GA 7/10/2010 Time: 27:06.1
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=77944

7)Barnes 5K Valdosta, GA 7/17/2010 Time: 26:35.9
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=78232

8) Break Bread Fun Run at YMCA Valdosta, GA 7/24/2010 Time: 28:16.1
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=78236

9) Run for Love 5K at ABAC Tifton, GA 8/7/2010 Time: 27:47
http://www.runningintheusa.com/HostedResults/2010/78804_2010RunforLove-Overall.HTM

10) Hornets' Nest 5K at Pelham High School Pelham, GA 8/21/2010 Time: 27:05
http://www.runningintheusa.com/HostedResults/2010/79117_HornetsNest5k2010results.pdf

11) Labor Day 5K Valdosta, GA 9/6/2010 Time: 26:54
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=79872

12) Partnership for Cancer Fund Run 5K Valdosta, GA 9/11/2010 Time: 27:14
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=79975

13) Hahira Bridge Run 5K Hahira, GA 9/25/10 Time: 27:32

14) Pelham Wildlife Festival 5K Pelham, GA 10/2/10 Time: 26:40
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/10/pelham-wildlife-2010.html

15) Cross Country Invitational 5K Hahira, GA--Lowndes County Boys' Ranch 10/16/10 Time: 28:56
https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1aqtg3go6zusw/?view=att&th=12bbfbd699b938bb&attid=0.1&disp=vah&realattid=a7fc8916b82a39b6_0.1&zw

16) St. John's Road Race 5K Valdosta, GA 10/30/10 Time: 26:54
http://www.getactive.us/raceresultsList.php

17) Speed Run 5K Valdosta, GA 12/11/10 Time: 27:49
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=a7473e7b7f&view=att&th=12cd7987a9e03c5e&attid=0.1&disp=vah&zw