A recent Time Magazine article describes the power of journaling with weight loss.  A study in the August 2008 issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine describes a study where participants were encouraged to use weight-loss maintenance strategies including calorie restriction, weekly group sessions, and moderately intensive exercise.  About half of the group was encouraged to keep a food diary.  The lead researcher describes the results by saying, “hands down, the most successful weight-loss method was keeping a record of what you eat.”  In a six-month study, participants who kept a food journal six or seven  days a week lost an average of 18 lb (8 kg), compared with an average of 9 lb (4 kg) lost by non-diary keepers.  The article goes on and describes the author’s personal experience with food journaling. 

Here is what I find interesting about the article:

1.       Writing down everything you eat will increase the results of your weight loss goals by a factor of 2 (3dB).  WOW!  I guess just writing it down makes you aware of how much junk is included in your diet.  Once you become aware of it, you will at least have to rationalize to yourself (and your diary) why you need another Coke in the afternoon or why you put chips on your kid’s dinner plates instead of fresh vegetables.

2.       Accountability will make this even more effective.  The author shared his food journal with his wife.  When another person is involved you now are not only justifying junk to yourself and your diary, you have to justify it to someone else.  This someone else can look for trends that you want to ignore.  “Wow, you are an entire carton of Oreos last week and another one this week.  Are you stressed?”

What’s great is the practice of journaling extends to other areas of our lives-

Finance: My parents both encouraged me to journal.  It all began with a Money Book.  In order to get my allowance when I was young (age 8 and up) I had to present a money book that showed all of my income and expenses for the month.  The money in my cigar box (my piggy bank) had to equal the balance of my money book for the month before I got my allowance.  This was a very good practice for college.  My parents made me, my brother and my sister sign contracts before attending college.  The terms of the contract stated:

·         Mom and dad would pay for 16 quarters of college (4 years).

·         All of the money for each quarter was paid at the beginning of each quarter.  We had to pay tuition, books, rent, food, entertainment, …  If we ran out of money for the quarter, we could not ask mom and dad for any more money – we had to get a job.

·         The amount they paid was fair.  It was enough to have some fun, but not enough to really get into too much trouble.

·         If we got a scholarship, the amount left over was ours to keep.

I still continue my financial journaling today.  It took a while for my wife to see the value in it, but we both see the monthly budget as a tool to help us reach our financial goals in life.  It also ties into food journaling in that I guarantee you will be amazed at how much you spend on fast-food when you integrate the cost over an entire month, quarter, year.  Just like your diet, your spending can get out of whack, and it takes an objective look at it in entirety to put you in a position to start prioritizing again.  This is a very healthy practice – highly recommended to start keeping a financial journal (budget).

Work: I keep a journal at work as well.  I jot down daily activities.  Sometimes they are detailed technical notes and sometimes they are a few words on what I accomplished for the day.  It’s also a great place to store records and notes of phone calls with customers and other contacts.  This really comes in handy when it’s time for an annual review.  Flipping through the pages written over the past year helps pull out specific actions that are worth noting on the review.

Personal (public): For some reason I feel the need to publish my personal thoughts in a blog.  Is it narcissistic?  Maybe, but I like to dialog with others (my sister would say argue instead of dialog, but I think I have matured a little).  Blogging is an outlet for me.  I read a lot of different things, and if I don’t try to formulate my thoughts on a particular subject, it will be lost.

Personal (private): I also keep a personal private journal.  I do not write in this journal too often.  I usually carry it with me when I go on a big trip or if I am working through some important private issues.  I find that it is comforting to work through the subject to the point where I can rationally put it on paper.  Once it is on paper, I can work through different scenarios that ultimately help me make a decision.

Prayer: I need to work on this.  Tony, the Youth Pastor, showed the youth group his prayer notebooks from college.  I thought this was really cool.  Tony said that ACTS prayers are a good way to start.  ACTS is a template to help guide you through your prayer standing for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication (or intercession).  I currently don’t keep a prayer journal, but would like to start.

Do you journal? 

Do you find it a nuisance or a comfort?

Share you journaling habits to help inspire us all to start/continue.

On October 9, 2006 the band WILCO played in Huntsville.  I started listening to them about six months prior to the show.  I am a WILCO late-bloomer – I started with Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, A Ghost is Born, and the live Kicking Television CDs.  I didn’t follow them during the Uncle Tupelo days and at the time of the show was not familiar with their previous CDs.  I was shocked that they were coming to town, and even more shocked that they were playing in the concert hall instead of the arena.  The concert hall is a 2000 seat venue with incredible acoustics.  All the ingredients were there for a great show.   I was excited!

My brother and I got tickets to the show.  It’s always a treat to go to a show with my brother.  For a while he was into recording live shows as a hobby.  (He only records bands that allowed live taping).  He had all the gear – high end microphones, microphone stands, cables, a four-channel digital audio recorder, and a lithium-ion battery power supply that he created from instructions on the internet.  In the days after a show he would mix the digitized channels together, and, after a little editing, created a digital reproduction of the show.  The recording he produced were great quality – and the WILCO show was no different.

Kevin was able to pre-order tickets before pubic release, and he got perfect tickets for recording – center stage about 10 rows up.  He set up the gear before the show started.  WILCO played 22 songs that evening.  I was familiar with most of the songs, and enjoyed hearing some of their old stuff for the first time.  The show was great, but the music was not what made the event memorable.  During the first intermission I bought the limited print posters for this show (see image below).   Very cool print showing the back end of the Saturn-V rocket with WILCO coming out of one of the nozzles.  These posters play a part later in the evening.  After the show, we were one of the last ones to leave after breaking down the recording gear.  We exited the concert hall and passed by the guarded entry way to the holy grail of any concert – BACK STAGE.  We decided to try to dupe the guard and get back stage.  I walked through first.  The guard asked for my back stage pass.  I told him I lost it.  He told me to get lost.  Strike out.  Kevin walked through next – holding all of his recording gear.  The guard asked him where his pass was.  Kevin said he is working with the band archiving their shows.  The recording gear he was holding made this seem legit, so the guard let him go through.  I passed him the concert prints and away he went.

He emerged an hour later with the entire bands signature on the prints – along with other random articles from back stage.  The poster is framed and hung above my desk at home.  I love looking at the print – there were only 100 prints created and Kevin is sure that we have the only ones with all signatures (He was the only person backstage that went out to the tour bus to get Tweedy’s signature).  On top of that the recording of the show turned out great.  They actually played new songs that later turned up on their Sky Blue Sky CD (Great recording of Impossible Germany).  It is really cool to listen to the show that you were out.  I listen and remember Tweedy’s banter with the crowd.  I can hear myself yelling during a couple of the songs (Kingpin).  I have the show in my ipod and occasionally listen to it in entirety.  These are two personal treasures to me, and I don’t know if I ever thanked my brother for the experience and the gifts.

Kevin, Thanks for being an incredible “little” brother.  I hope that I contribute as much to your life as you have contributed to mine!

Here is the set-list for any fans:

1.       Poor Places

2.       Muzzle of Bees

3.       Shot in the Arm

4.       Impossible Germany

5.       Break Your Arm

6.       Kamera

7.       Handshake Drug

8.       Jesus Etc

9.       At Least

10.   Airline to Heaven

11.   Walken

12.   Theologians

13.   I’m the Man

14.   Via Chicago

15.   Hummingbird

16.   Late Greats

17.   Always in Love

18.   How to Fight Loneliness

19.   Heavy Metal Drummer

20.   Let’s Not Get Carried Away

21.   Kingpin

22.   Misunderstood

There is a theme in a couple of blogs I have been reading lately that has given me something to chew on.  Pastor Sherill is starting a sermon series on the Apostle’s Creed.  This creed is said in some churches throughout the world as a corporate reminder of the story we believe, the God we believe in, and the life we are called to live. Duncan and his blog community have been discussing the use of music in a worship service (second link here).  There is a strong desire there for their faith community to create artistic expressions of their faith unique to their community.

Should we continue reciting ancient creeds and singing traditional hymns, or should we be actively creating new artistic expressions of our Faith?

I grew up attending a traditional Methodist worship service.  Near the beginning of the service, we would always recite the Apostle’s creed.  As a child and youth I mostly recited the words with the rest of the congregation without giving much thought to the meaning of the entire creed.  I would catch myself thinking, “Why is He judging the quick – kinda unfair to the slow”.  It didn’t mean much to me then, but I recited it.  It was etched into my brain.  Now, whenever I hear it, the words just start pouring out.  It is comforting when visiting another church to recite the creed with them.  It’s something we share and connects my Faith community to theirs.   And, now that I am maturing in my Faith, the creed is intriguing and the words have new meaning.  The same goes for traditional hymns.  Most of the time my mind wonders and I lose my place somewhere around the middle of the second stanza.  Most of the words lose their meaning during the song as I just start humming the tune of the song.  I really don’t get much out of most traditional hymns (sorry Charles Wesley), but there are exceptions.  It is comforting to hear certain songs in specific worship services (i.e. “Up From the Grave He Arose” at Easter, “Joy to the World” at Christmas, and the “Doxology” every Sunday after the offering was collected).  I also read an article by a pastor that was worshiping at a Christian church in Korea, and he described how comforting it was to recognize the tune to Holy, Holy, Holy and sing it in English while the rest of the congregation was singing it in their native tongue.  This is another example of a traditional (or universal) expression that links Faith communities.

Currently, I attend a contemporary Methodist worship service (same church where I used to attend the traditional).  There are no creeds and no traditional hymns.  We sing contemporary Christian songs and occasionally express ourselves in the service with original dramas, interpretive dances, and songs.  Most of the time we sing the contemporary Christian songs that are on the Christian radio stations, and we watch movie clips that relate to the sermon.  Some of the songs are solid and really connect with me on an emotional and intellectual level, and some are very thin with weak theology but maybe have a catchy hook.  Trying to follow the lyrics to contemporary songs you aren’t familiar with is just as bad as losing your place in a six stanza traditional hymn.  We have continually battled the “entertainment” vs “participation” elements of the service.  The part of the discussion that I think is interesting is the attempt to create expressions of faith in your faith community, or better yet, on a personal level.  For example, how many of you have ever tried to summarize the gospel in your own words (i.e. develop your own creed).  It is difficult.  I tried it and quickly realized that I am not as familiar with my faith as I think that I am.  Before you create, you have to have a firm understanding of the subject.  This requires intentional study.  New expressions that truly resonate with your faith group require you to know the subject well enough and the group well enough so that you can relate one to the other.  Again, very difficult, but I think the process of trying this will lead you to a deeper understanding of your group and the subject.

So, back to the original question (stated differently) – Should we continue to sing traditional hymns and recite ancient creeds that, on one hand, connect us to the church universal, but on the other hand, are so foreign that they don’t exactly relate to me today, or should we strive to create our own expressions of faith that, on one hand, require us to intentionally study and know the subject deeply, but, on the other hand, may alienate others that are not indigenous to our worship services?

The obvious answer is “yes” – we should practice organic and universal expressions of our faith.  We should appreciate the songs and indigenous expressions of faith that other faith communities create, and we should appreciate the traditional expressions of our faith that have existed throughout the evolution of Christians understanding and application of the Faith to our lives.

I want to challenge you to pay attention to the lyrics of the songs or hymns you sing in worship and the words of the creeds you recite.  Do they speak to you?  Do you find lyrics distracting, and do you prefer instrumental songs?  Do you find instruments distracting and prefer a cappella singing?  Does music in general distract you? Are creeds just something you robotically recite, or do you truly believe what you are saying?  Do creeds and traditional hymns have any relevancy in your lives today?

The even bigger challenge is to attempt to create new expressions.  Try to write your own creed or song.  Once you are done, I bet you will have a new connection and appreciation for the traditional creeds, songs and hymns.

After seven years working as a radar systems analysis at TSC-Phase IV Systems, I am moving on.  I am the newest employee at GATR Technologies!  My first day is Monday, August 11th.  I have helped Paul Gierow, GATR President, develop and mature an inflatable antenna technology for satellite communications over the past five years, so I am very familiar with the GATR technology, company, and staff.  The current staff has done a remarkable job of getting the technology working and demo systems in the hands of users.  I am looking forward to joining the GATR team and helping take the business to the next level.

GATR is a small business (10 employees) that has developed an inflatable antenna solution for satellite communications.  Visit the link above to GATR’s website to get a detailed description of the technology.  Basically, they have created a lightweight, quickly deployable satellite dish.  Instead of requiring a big rigid heavy dish to access a satellite link, The GATR inflatable antenna can be stuffed in a backpack, set up in remote areas, and on a satellite in less than an hour.  When inflated, the antenna is electrically equivalent to a rigid dish of the same diameter.  You essentially get a lot of bandwidth without much of a weight or volume cost.  It was named one of Popular Sciences 2007 Inventions of The Year.

Some of the uses of the antenna include:

• Disaster relief
• Remote area communications
• Event broadcasting
• Humanitarian aid reach-back

My position at GATR is Vice President of Engineering.  My job responsibilities include technically managing the development of the antenna for new applications, managing the engineering staff, pursuing new business through proposal writing, managing a large customer set in Washington DC, and pursuing alternative users for the technology.  It is a small company, and I will be involved in all aspects of operations.  I am really excited about the change and looking forward to the challenge of getting this product in the hands of users across the globe.  The potential applications for this technology are numerous.

I am truly grateful for my experience at Phase IV.  I started working there straight out of graduate school.  The founders, president, and the other managers helped me mature into a leader in the company.  The most difficult part of the transition is leaving the personal relationships I have developed over the past seven years.  There are some truly talented people at Phase IV, and I will miss working and dialoging with them. 

I will write more about the inflatable antenna technology in future posts!

We all have computers, and we all get news ones.  As a steward of this Earth, pay attention to where the E-waste goes.  I work in the electronics industry, and there is some nasty stuff in the circuit boards, plastic enclosures, and monitors.  Be responsible with you old computer when you get a new one.  This video opened my eyes to where some of our E-waste goes.  I didn’t realize that some “e-waste “recyclers” just shipping it to developing nations to get burned or thrown in their rivers.  Yikes!

I received a package in the mail yesterday afternoon from Catalyst.  Inside the package I found a moleskin journal and an envelope of names.  I opened the brown leather journal and read the challenge.  I had 24 hours to perform one of the 30 projects described in the first few pages of the journal, and then I had to send the journal on to the next person on the list.  For the next hour I was paralyzed – Which experiment can I accomplish in 24 hours?

I knew the challenge was coming but I didn’t know exactly when.  My initial reaction to the package was “Not today??!!”  My wife was out of town at a conference, and I was on kid duty.  (I have three ages 7, 5, and 3).  Over the next 24 hours I had to get my three kids to dental appointments at 9:40, be back at the house by noon for a garage door installation, and then have my youngest down for her two-hour nap by 1.  This didn’t leave a whole lot of time for random acts of kindness.  Well, I work best when my back is against the proverbial wall.  I needed a project that the kids could do with me, and hopefully get something out of.  I asked my oldest daughter, Claire, which one she wanted to do.  She chose

Experiment #4 – Buy 100 popsicles and pass them out to people that need a sweet this afternoon.

Now we needed to decide who needed a sweet treat.  I decided to make a call to one of my good friends Tony McGinnis.  Tony works for the Huntsville Housing Authority, and is a well respected person in an area of town that is under-resourced.  (Tony was raised in this area of Huntsville, played basketball for Texas A&M, has written a book, and is an incredible role model for these children).  I told him that I had 24 hours to give out 100 popsicles.  He got me connected to the Boys and Girls Club in the Sparkman Housing complex. 

The day worked out perfectly!  Dentist appointments were done at 10:20.  Popsicles were bought by 10:50.  I let the kids choose the type of popsicles (Claire – Crayola Scriblers, Joshua – Superheros, and Claudia – Dora).  We arrived at the Boys and Girls Club at 11:15.  The kids were just finishing lunch.  We handed out popsicles to about 75 children and workers.  The excitement and look on their faces were priceless!

Thank you Catalyst for this challenge! 

Notes:

• This opportunity gave me the chance to dialog with my three kids about race, poverty, and why we would do something like this.  They had a lot of questions after we were done.  I plan to continue to expose them to other people’s realities as they grow older.
• When we were driving home to meet the garage door repairmen, Claire said, “Dad, that was cool!  What project are we going to do tomorrow?”

I love it!  Faith like a child….

I am amazed that the two previous CrossFit posts are now the most read posts on my blog.  A lot of people seem interested in this exercise philosophy.  So to pad my blog hits with additional CrossFit searches, here is a list of the exercises I did over the ten days.

Monday 7/21/2008 – 400 yard sprint outside in the Matrix parking lot, jog back into the building, 21 kettle bell thrusters, 21 push-ups, jog back outside, 400 yard sprint, jog back in, 15 thrusters, 15 push ups, jog back out, 400 yard sprint, jog back in 9 thruster, and 9 push ups.  Time – 16:30  (It was only 102 degrees that day, running in the parking lot was great).

Tuesday 7/22/2008 – 30 repetitions of the following exercises:

Kettlebell Get-ups

Ring dips

Air Squat

Knees to Elbows

Kettle bell thrusters

24 in box jumps

Ball slams w/ 25 lb medicine ball

Time – 22:00

I had to do my dips on the parallel bars.  I was too weak to use the rings.  The knees to elbow exercise is done on the pull-up cage – while suspended, curl your body so that your knees touch your elbows.  My abs appreciated the exercise.  Thank you sir, may I please have another.

Wednesday 7/23/2008 – Thee rounds of 30 reps on the bench press and 400 yards on the row machine.  After warming up throwing the 10 pound medicine ball at each other, Russell asked for two volunteers.  I was feeling froggy, so I volunteered.  Russel looked at me and asked if I could bench my body weight.  I said, “maybe a couple of times.”  “Can you do it 30 times?”  “Uhhh, no”.  “Ok, start out with 135”.  I have not done bench press in a long, long time.  I got through 10 reps and racked it.  Pulled it down and finished a set of 5 with help from the spotter.  Russell told me to drop weight to 115.  I struggled through the remaining 15 reps breaking them down into sets of three.  Right into rowing.  We had to keep out pace under 150 (units of some sort).  I dropped weight again on the bench for the second set.  The next 400 yards on the rower sucked (My form is not particularly good, especially when I am completely without energy).  I completed the last set of bench with only 65 pounds – struggling to get that weight to go up. (That’s right – I’m weak!)

Time – 24:00

Friday 7/25/2008 – Tobata (or as Jason T. renamed it “A-lot-a”).  We did seven rounds or 20 seconds of work wit 10 seconds of rest.  The exercises were

Air Squat

Sit Ups

Burpees

Kettle bell thrusters

24 inch box jumps

On the air squats and burpees we had to call out how many we did on the first round, then Russell had to do at least that many on the last round or we get a penalty.  I got a penalty on both, which means I had extra work to do at the end.  I had to do another set of 20 seconds of air squats, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds burpees, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds air squat, … I was calling Russell unrepeatable names in my head (with what little oxygenated blood was available up there).

Saturday 7/26/2008 – I ran 3.5 miles in the neighborhood.  

Monday 7/28/2008 – In 20 minutes, we had to see how many sets of five pull ups, ten pushups, and 15 air squats we could complete.  I got eleven sets.  I have weak chest and shoulders right now, so the push ups really slowed me down.

Tuesday 7/29/2008 – Four rounds of 12 front bar bell squats and 30 yards of burpee-broad jumps.  What are burpee broad jumps you ask?  Do a burpee and then do a flat footed broad jump and then do another burpee and then another broad jump, …  I was squatting with 95 pounds.  That was a good weight for me.  It was difficult to get up, but due to the number of air squats I have been doing, I felt solid during the exercise (spent, but solid).

Time – 24:00

Wednesday 7/30/2008 – Run 5K on the cross country course behind the muni golf course.  Russell introduced to us the Pose running method.  My calves hurt.

Time – 27:20

Notes:

• Russell talked to us about diet Tuesday morning.  There are a number of diet philosophies that he recommends (Zone, block, Paleolithic, …) but what I distilled from the discussion (it was after a hard workout, so my brain was only partially working) is that we need to eliminate all cheap carbs from our diet (breads, chips, sodas, basically anything that can sit on the shelf at the grocery store for a long time).  I asked if Subway was good.  He said only if you ask them to put the meat, cheese, and vegetables in your hands as they make it.  I took that as a no. 
• I have not lost any weight yet.  My body already feels tighter and stronger, but the scale still reads the same.  Just an observation.
• I am no longer sore from the workouts. I get fatigued, but not the advil-popping-to-function sore.  I think I have been to enough classes that my body believes that I am serious this time.  Over the past year, my body has rolled its eyes at me when I started exercising knowing that I wouldn’t last past a week or two.  I think I have slapped him around enough that he is taking me seriously now.

About three weeks ago someone in my Sunday School class asked a simple question that has stuck with me.  We were studying the Beatitudes and talking about how completely counter-culture Christ is calling us to live.  In the discussion, this person asked

“I wonder what behavior we accept today that twenty years from now we will look back on and shake our heads with dismay.  For example, if I was a Christian in the South in the 1960’s I probably would have accepted or, at best, turned a blind eye to racism.  Today this is absolutely intolerable to me.”

I don’t know why this has stuck with me so long.  Maybe it’s because I know there are things that I overlook and just accept as reality – life is tough, right?  I have become comfortable in some ways with the injustices that are all around.  They sound too big for me to have any effect.

I just finished reading Jim Wallis’s latest book, The Great Awakening – Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.  He concludes the book with a beautifully written chapter titled “What’s Acceptable, What’s Possible”.  In this chapter Mr. Wallis spoke directly to the question I had been wrestling with.  He says,

            “Each new generation has a chance to alter two basic definitions of reality in our world – what is acceptable and what is possible…  When the really big offenses are finally corrected, finally changed, it is usually because something has happened to change our perception of the moral issues at stake.

            That something is this: the moral contradiction we have long lived with is no longer acceptable to us.  What we had accepted, or ignored, or denied, finally gets our attention, and we decided that we just cannot and will not live it any longer.  But until that happens, the injustice and misery continue.

            It often takes a new generation to make that decision – that something people have long tolerated just won’t be tolerated anymore. So I ask students and young people these questions:  What are you going to no longer accept in the world?  What will you refuse to tolerate, now that you will be making decisions that matter?”

What an incredible call to action for young leaders!  He goes on to say

…thirty thousand more children will die globally, today, from needless, senseless, and utterly preventable poverty and disease”  Many people don’t know those facts or, if they are vaguely aware of them, have never given them a second thought

            That’s the way it usually is.  We have “easy” explanations for why poverty or some other calamity exists, for why it can’t be changed – all of which makes us feel better about ourselves – or we are just more concerned with lots of other things.  We really don’t have to care.  So we tolerate the injustice and just keep looking the other way.

            But then something changes.  Something gets our attention, something goes deeper that it has before and hooks us in places we call the heart, the soul, the spirit.  And once we’ve crossed over to really seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting the injustice, we can never look back.  It is now unacceptable to us.  What we see now offends us, offends our understanding of the sanctity and dignity of life, offends our notions of fairness and justice, offends out most basic values; it violates our idea of common good and starts to tug at our deepest places.  We cross the line of unacceptability.  We become intolerant of the injustice.

            But just changing our notion of what is unacceptable isn’t enough;  we must also change our perception of what is possible.”

I can feel the ground swell of others becoming unsatisfied with the way certain things are.  So, what is it that makes you uncomfortable?  Listen to that impulse.  Get your hands dirty and get a first hand view of the problem.  Don’t stop at becoming knowledgeable about a problem, we have to change our perception of what is possible. 

The one injustice that I will be getting more involved in over the next year is the education of impoverished children in my community.  I plan on writing more about this in the future. 

So, What injustice are become intolerant of?

Public transportation has been a topic in the media lately here in Huntsville.  The main question that is being asked is, “Given the surge in gas prices, why hasn’t Huntsville seen the jump in public transportation participation that other major cities have seen?”  Great question.  Many current local political leaders and many candidates running for office (It is an election year) are discussing this question.  I wonder if any of them have tried using the Huntsville Shuttle?  

A few of the readers of this blog know that I have tried getting to and from work using public transportation on two separate occasions (Ride the Bus and Dump the Pump are previous posts that describe my past experiences).  A fraternity brother that reads my blog told a local news reporter about me and the bus.  They wanted to do a story.  I got a call Thursday from the news reporter, and she asked if they could film me riding the bus and interview me on Friday.  I agreed, and this is the news spot that was created.

Blog and Ride

Like all news reports, the whole story was not accurately portrayed.  The report makes it sound like I ride the bus all the time.  The truth is, this was only my third time in three months.  I hope that I have not disrespect those in the community that strictly rely on the bus to get around.  A more objective look at the bus system should also include interviews with regular riders – not just interested outsiders like me.  I hope my experiences have raised awareness to a problem that, if dealt with properly, could significantly improve the quality of life for many residents of this community.  I also have a message to the political leaders – Ride the bus.  Get to know the problem you are discussing.  Get to know the people that are regular riders.  Get their opinions, not just those of your removed-from-reality cohorts.

Like I said in the interview, the bus system is a good service provided by our community, but it really falls short of being an effective alternative to driving.  Huntsville can do better than this.

Other notes from the trip:

• I got soaked walking home from the bus stop yesterday afternoon.  You gotta love the pop-up thunderstorms in the South.  I should have packed an umbrella.
• Bennett and I had a great discussion on the ride/walk to work.  We discussed how the constraints and characteristics of this community are self-selecting to those that choose to move here.  We are a low-tax, high individual rights community (Our houses all have high fences and the majority of the people will not give up the freedom that comes with driving their own automobile).  So, when we have a big industry boom like we have now with BRAC, the ones that choose to move here will be the ones looking for low taxes and high individual freedom – not the urbanites looking to live more enmeshed in a community.  More on this topic later.
• In the interview, I meant to say “living alternatively” not “living an alternative lifestyle”, which has its own connotation.  A lot of people picked up an that phrase and have had a good laugh about it – Including the wife of the associate pastor at church that emailed me and said she supports “Bennett and I in our alternative lifestyle living (with a J)”.  Lesson learned – when speaking to the media, keep your message simple.  It is kinda funny though. 

I am searching for a new book to read.  The last five books I have read have been incredible, but its time for some fiction.  My last five books include

1. The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America by Jim Wallis
2. The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, The Gospel, and Church by Shane Hipps
3. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
4. unChristian by Dave Kinnamen and Gabe Lyons
5. Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren

All four of these books are very good, and I plan on writing reviews for them later, but for now, I need a break.  I am a bit saturated by the message in each.  I need a good fiction book.  Here is a list of the fiction books that I am considering.

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
3. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

I have Kite Runner and A Long Way Down, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the most intriguing to me right now.  I love fiction books that have broken characters trying make sense out of our broken world.  Some of my favorite fiction authors include John Irving, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, and Graham Greene.  I need to find something new, something fresh, something interesting.

Any comments on my fiction list?  

Any other suggestions?